End of the Line
by cjjs
Summary: A young man is caught in the Raccoon city outbreak. The tale of the RPD's last stand and the survivors who fought for their lives against creatures they were told don't exist. My first attempt at fanfic, let me know how it turned out.
1. The Survivor

**Author's note:** **Capcom owns Resident Evil, not me…please don't sue me, oh mighty corporation!**

**I had published this one once before, but decided to slice it up into bite sized bits. I hope you enjoy it, I have always been intrigued by what had happened inside the RPD precinct before Leon made his entrance, this is my take on it.**

**September 28 1998 11:20 PM- The Survivor**

Jesse Franks was tired and hungry. He had neither eaten nor slept any great deal in the past three days, but what bothered him the most was the fact that he was in desperate need of a cigarette. It would seem however, that the best he could do was stare at the battered pack of Marlboro Reds held in one hand. He had lost his lighter two nights ago and had yet to find a replacement. The home's owners apparently did not keep pyrotechnics in the basement, and to even consider leaving, for the time being, was not an option.

As if to prove this point, the things in the kitchen hall resumed their game of howling stupidly to themselves, and ramming the basement door in a futile attempt to get at him.

_-Ah well, you wanted to quit smoking anyways, no time like the present -_

"Shut up!" he muttered, although no one could hear him.

No one human, anyway.

Jesse cast sleep blind eyes around his cinderblock fortress. For the time being, he was safe. The basement in which he had barricaded himself had no windows, and the only door leading to it was made of solid oak. He wasn't sure if the creatures upstairs could break it down, but God help him if they managed. He had seen many people killed by things just like the ones upstairs, and it was never a clean death.

With a quick swipe, the thoughts of death and monsters were shoved safely away from his conscious mind. Avoiding such undesirable topics had been one of the main contributors to his survival for the past four days. Most others who had decided to stop and take stock of the situation had gone thoroughly insane. You see, Raccoon City, population one hundred thousand, located at the foot of the Arklay Mountains, had been taken over by the living dead. Jesse Daniel Franks: twenty-six years old, injured, stoopbacked and hollow-cheeked, was one of Raccoon City's few human residents. The remainder of the population were either dead, or eating the dead.

Of course, to say that his survival had been simply dependant upon his ability to shut things out would be foolish. He has had almost supernatural luck, and sharp enough insight to make it through the killing-floor that had become the RPD precinct and the swarming insanity of Racoon City's deadplugged streets.

Staring with an almost hypnotic intensity at the pack of cigarettes, his mind began to gently probe the murky regions of his memory regarding the last few nights.

_-How long has it been since you've had a cigarette, buddy? Twenty-four hours? No, it's been even longer than that. You and Stacey were stuck in the clock tower for at least eight hours before then, and before that, you and a few others were in the STARS room. When did Dave take your lighter? How long? -_

"September 27th," he spoke aloud. "The day after the attack, with Martin, in the pressroom"

That statement was enough to trigger a flood of memories. His self-imposed amnesia had broken, and as Jesse's mind relived hellish images from the battle on Oak Street, the morgue, and the slaughter in the parking garage, he began to weep. A desperate, raking sobbing filled the dank basement. The zombies upstairs were kind enough to answer back, moaning hungrily and pounding on the door.


	2. The Calm Before

**September 26 1998 6:00 PM- The Calm Before...**

Jesse's day was spent in the same miserable funk he had been trapped in for the past three weeks. He was up to his elbows in grease, resurrecting a miserable excuse for a police car in damp tomb that was the Raccoon Police Department's Oak street precinct garage. Jesse, one of three RPD's motor pool mechanics, had yet to fully cope with his sudden increase in workload as, until three weeks ago, his had been a rather relaxed, enjoyable job. On the average day, more time was spent on coffee break then on the shop floor.

That had all changed twenty-one days ago. Police Chief Brian Irons had just recruited ten new officers, and somewhere around that time, it occurred to him that these fine young boys were going to need something to drive. Of course, by that time it had been too late to order new cars, and the RPD, already short one cruiser, were making do until there was some money in the budget. Needless to say these ten rookies compounded the problem. There had been a brief period of senior officer hand wringing, until Irons himself had the nuclear idea to pull four "auxiliary" units out of the bone yard as a stopgap solution.

The RPD were currently using year-old Crown Victoria P71s, The Crown Vic's had replaced an aging fleet of Chevy Caprice Classics, which had been sold to the Raccoon Yellow Taxi Service after being decommissioned. Meaning that the only "auxiliary" cars the RPD still owned were about twenty 1984 Plymouth Gran Furys which had been "temporarily" parked for eight years.

There was a lot of inter office back patting as the crisis had been averted, however the rather indolent motor pool mechanics had just been handed the monumental task of trying to revive these long-dead squad cars. Irons tossed in the impossible three-week deadline as an added bonus.

The three men (Jesse, foul-mouthed Kevin Arsenault, and Martin Danielson, who did all the electrical work) drove down to Grady's Parts and Salvage in Martin's badly sprung F-100. Kevin and Martin complained bitterly the whole way there, both had been around in 1990, when the venerable Gran Furys had been replaced with the Chevy's, and both knew that the Furies had been in bad shape then. They could only imagine what the sands of time had done to them. Jesse (having only worked for the RPD two years) had no idea what Irons had in store for him.

"Aw Jesus," Kevin groaned once old man Grady led them to the area he stored the old squad cars "we're _screwed_!"

To say that the cars were in bad shape would be to say that Hell was a bit warm. Most of the cruisers were barely recognizable as cop cars; many others were simply empty shells, stripped of almost every component. Martin was at the site for less than a minute before he stormed into Grady's office, dialled the precinct's number on the old rotary and got a hold of chief Irons.

"There is NO WAY we will be able to fix these." his raspy old man's voice yelled into the phone. "What we need to do is go to a used car lot and pick up a few sedans. These things'll never roll again."

An hour later, the trio watched, baleful, as Grady's Top Kick began its course to the RPD's underground garage, pulling the first of four clapped-out Plymouths, like a hunter would drag its kill.

"The good times are over, boys." Martin spat a yellow wad and wiped his mouth with a shirtsleeve. "Three weeks…damn it all."

They swore, argued among themselves, smoked cigarettes while poking fingers into blown-out engines, and grudgingly, began the process of automotive resurrection.

By the end of the first week, the three mechanics had actually made considerable progress; the four Furys needed a ton of bodywork, new tires, and a carburetor rebuild. The engines and power trains would also need some new seals. Much to Martin's chagrin, mice had gotten into the cars and had gnawed the insulation off quite a bit of the wiring. Jesse and Kevin were handling the mechanical aspect easily, putting more time into the bodywork, and old Martin soldiered along, soldering and splicing the damaged wiring. The ten-hour, six day per week shifts were gruelling, but they were beginning to accept that the Chief was right when he had claimed it could be done.

On the twenty-sixth day of September, Jesse and Martin were pulling another long night. Both were furious with Kevin, who hadn't shown up for work that morning. Martin had rung up his trailer but got no answer.

"Probably passed out in an alley somewhere, dirty bastard!" Martin scowled as he slammed the receiver back in its cradle.

Both were content however that the old beaters were starting to look like functioning automobiles. The cars, once the old RPD bottle green, were re-painted two days ago in the newer black and white colour scheme, and all but one were running, the big 318 cubic inch engines firing for the first time in eight years.

By six o-clock, two of the rejuvenated cruisers were parked outside, looking quite out of place next to the sleek Fords. Inside the garage Martin was hooking up the radar on number three, Jesse was working a kink out of the fourth's carburetor.

Jesse and Martin decided to put down their tools at 7 o'clock for coffee and a cigarette. If one worked for the RPD, there are two places they could grab a smoke, outside, or in the lunchroom. "No Smoking" signs hung everywhere, and with good reason. The precinct was a very old building, built just after the turn of the century. The architects had used a lot of heavy wood and tile, and if the place ever caught on fire it would burn for days, taking most of downtown with it.

Wearing identical dark blue coveralls with the RPD emblem stitch-witched to the left pocket, Jesse and Martin clambered up the concrete stairs to the lunchroom, looking for a cup of coffee and a bit of gab with Dave Ford, a permanent fixture of the RPD's lunchroom. Members on the force joked that he had sold his house for drinking money and had taken up residence in the lunchroom. When not on patrol, he could be found in there, smoking a Camel and watching the old Zenith television bolted to the ceiling. The mechanics were surprised however, to see Dave sprinting down the hallway. The man wouldn't run if he was on fire. He obviously didn't see them though, because he neatly body-checked Martin, causing him to slam into the paneled wall and slump to the floor. The officer continued down the hallway, his boots barely hitting the tiled floor, apparently in too much of a hurry to offer an apology.

Jesse gawked and helped the old man to his feet. "You okay there, Martin?" he asked; a bit concerned. Martin's breathing was very quick, nearly to the point of hyperventilation.

"Ye-ye-es," he answered, "Du-humb shit kn-kn-hocked the wh-hind outta me"

"Just as long as you're not going to die on me. What the hell's wrong with Dave anyways? I don't think I've ever seen him move so fast. Hell, I didn't think he could run at all," Jesse responded.

As the elderly electrician was thinking of some cutting remark about the officer, a thundering mass of running footsteps filled the hallway. Jesse had just enough time to get out of the way before it was crammed with police officers, clad in riot gear and carrying MP-5 submachine-guns, heading towards the parking garage.

"Wh-at's all thi-his hap-py horseshit?" Martin asked.

"Hell if I know, but we're going to find out right now." Jesse said, and reached out. He grabbed one of the riot cops by the elbow and yanked him back towards them.

"What the fuck are you doing?" the cop yelled. His pale blue eyes were panicky, his breathing shallow. Jesse recognized him, Steve Visser, on the force for just over a year.

"What's going on? Where are you guys going?" Jesse asked.

"Didn't you hear?" the cop answered "There's some kind of disturbance near the chemical plant... Officers down. Irons green-lighted the use of deadly force and sent half the force out on riot suppression; the other half is barricading around them."

Jesse frowned, and was about to ask the cop another question, but another voice boomed from the staircase

"For Crissakes, come on Steve! The bus is leaving!"

The cop threw them a look which could have been either fear or exhilaration, and then turned to join the group downstairs without another word.

_-Holy Jesus- _Jesse thought to himself_ -First those cannibal murders out in the woods a few months back, then the attacks this week, and now a riot? Some people in this town are coming completely unglued -_

Jesse sighed and pulled at his collar. It was as though a dark cloud of impending disaster had been hanging over Raccoon City for the past few days. It could be felt all over town. The streets were noticeably emptier, and there were reports of people being attacked by strangers. It also seemed as if everyone in town was coming down with some kind of serious flu. Everywhere Jesse looked, he saw sallow faces, flushed cheeks and tired eyes. He overheard from one of the officers that a dozen RPD staff had already called in sick. Yesterday, a memorandum had been sent though the station warning of a possible terrorist attack, and that ammunition and weapons were to be placed in scattered locations throughout both RPD precincts to prevent their seizure in case either station was attacked. Things got stranger this morning when the telephone company's main office and switchboard erupted in flames, shutting down phone service all over town, and occupying the Raccoon City Fire Department for most of the day.

Displaying latent mind reading skills, Martin pasted on the most comforting face he could manage, and gently nudged the young man's side.

"Don't worry yourself too much about it, Bucko." he said, trying to keep the fear out of his own voice. "Probably just some good old boys getting rowdy after a day's work. Let's go for a smoke, get some vitamin C."

Jesse smiled at that. He always liked the electrician, mainly because he reminded him of his Uncle Tyler, who, when Jesse was a kid, would buy firecrackers, and share some of his beer. Jesse's smile drew a bit wider.

"Sure thing, you look like you could use some vitamin C, senior citizens need all sorts of vitamins,"

Martin chuckled, and then lightly punched him in the arm.

As they stepped through the lunchroom's door, a rattling engine sound filled the hall. Jesse immediately identified it as the SWAT team paddy wagon, its turbocharger whining shrilly as it spooled-up and worked the heavy truck up the garage's exit ramp. The two mechanics walked in and sat down in the moulded plastic seats, Jesse lighting a Marlboro, Martin preferring his home rolled Winstons. Jesse was more concerned than he let on to about the riot; something didn't seem... right about it...why would people choose to riot in the industrial section of town, and without any provocation? He saw these worries reflected in Martin's lined face, and for some reason that made things much worse. Neither said anything all break, the eerie silence broken only by the sound of hurried feet on tile, or a squad car's screaming siren, eventually fading as the nervous cop behind the wheel sped down Oak Street.


	3. The Storm

**AN- Chapter updated Oct 3 2010**

**September 26 1998 7:28 PM- The Storm**

After a long coffee break, Jesse and Martin proceeded down the stairs to the garage. They had decided to call it quits for the night and pick up an hour earlier the next morning. It had been a long, uninspiring day, and neither wanted to be around when the RPD started to cart in vanloads of obnoxious rioters. Jesse was still worried about what was going on, but knew that he could do nothing to change the situation, and in times like that, it was best to get out of the way and let the pros handle things. Also, he had agreed to visit his fiancée after work.

Jesse smirked to himself, already cherishing the half-hour drive to Latham, the throaty scream of his Mach One's wound-out 351, the mountain breeze, Susan's hot breath.

Jesse's grin broadened and he shook his head. "…My Suzy-Q,"

Susan Kelso: skater girl, five feet tall, pierced, tattooed, devilish prankster with mischievous laughter simmering behind those huge, dark eyes.

In all honesty, he was still baffled how their relationship flourished, Susan, a fan of punk music, snowboarding and B-movie horror flicks seemed to enjoy nothing more than poking fun at him. Jesse, a Jim Morrison, drag racing and Steve McQueen enthusiast, enjoyed nothing more than being poked. They didn't seem to have a single common interest, but Jesse knew that he cherished her companionship like none other, and he sincerely hoped that she felt the same. Whenever they were together one or the other, or often times, both of them would be laughing.

Three months ago he had surprised her with a marriage proposal. He had been nervous and reeked of perspiration. It was a reckless move, stupid. Why would a wild girl like Susan settle down, especially with a gearhead like him? Though it was Jesse who would be surprised, when Susan acceptepted his offer, blurting an emphatic "Yes!" before he could choke out the entire sentence. Her simple gold engagement ring looked so strange alongside her assortment of skull and snake themed jewelery.

She was quitting her job in Latham October 29 and would move in with him the week after. Her father, an office manager for Umbrella Inc, had pulled a few strings and got her a job with the company. Jesse was counting the days until she moved in, and the guys at work were already calling him Mr. Susan Kelso.

As they walked into the garage Martin, rather unpleasantly, snapped him out of his reverie.

"Whoa there, boy. Look at that. Seems though some higher ups are admiring our handiwork."

Jesse looked up and saw a sergeant standing beside the Fury that Martin had been working on. Jack Anderson, the radio dispatcher, was sitting inside.

"You see something you like in there boys?" Martin flashed his tobacco stained teeth in a fierce grin. "Well today's your lucky day, I'll sell them to you for cheap, I'm thinking of upgrading to a nice new Ford."

The blood seemed to drain from his face as they glanced up at him. In a word, they were petrified.

_-Crap, what now?- _Jesse thought

"What's wrong, boys? You...look like you've seen Lucifer himself." Martin asked.

Sergeant Carlson waved them closer. Jesse could now see that Anderson was talking into the radio, sweat running freely down his face. And as they neared, he was able to hear the conversation between Officer Anderson and whoever was yelling through the car's two-way radio.

The CB seemed to vibrate in its mount as a male voice yelled over sound of gunfire and shrieks.** "Approximately sixteen officers down, countless civilians." **

Officer Anderson, frowned. "Say again? How many casualties?"

The male voice responded a moment later. **"sixteen off...GET BACK GODDAMN YOU! " **The man was drowned out by a salvo of curses and screaming, machinegun fire, and then just screaming,

All they were picking up was radio static.

Officer Anderson keyed the mic. "Come in? Come in?"

Another cop responded. Jesse could identify the voice as being Marvin Branagh's **"We're completely surroun"-**_ shotgun blast _**"...falling back to second barricade."**

Anderson nodded. **"**Roger that."

**"GET BACK IN THE BUS WE'RE F" **_-shotgun blast _**"G BACK" **

Someone else cut Branagh off. **"GET OFF ME, **_**GETOFFME!" **_The transmission ended in screaming.

Anderson held the mic a quarter-inch from his mouth. "Come in, SWAT team, come in."

The only response they received was more static.

All four men seemed too stunned to speak, staring into the radio static with jaws set and lips pulled back from teeth. Jesse's stomach had tightened into something about the size of a golf ball. Inside his mind a tiny nagging voice cried.

_-I told you something was screwy! We're all in deep trouble now! You should have called in sick today. -_

After what had seemed like at least a few hours of silence, Martin spoke up. His voice was low and dry. "What in the name of Jesus just happened out there? Was that the SWAT team?"

Sergeant Carlson stared at him for a few seconds; beads of sweat formed on his high forehead and then ran down his nose. He swallowed heavily.

"That was the initial riot suppression force. About six minutes ago, just before they got to the scene, the precinct's radio net went… on the fritz …or something. Our only functioning radios are the CBs in the squad cars. We got in contact with them thirty seconds before you guys showed up."

"How many cops were on the suppression force?" Jesse asked, finally silencing that little voice.

"Twenty-two, fifteen SWAT team, and seven uniforms," Anderson said, not looking at them. He spoke into the mic. "First response, come in."

"And there were sixteen officers down?" Martin asked.

"At least sixteen," Anderson replied.

"Holy shit" Jesse almost whispered. He suddenly felt weak. Sixteen officers taken down, all of them heavily armed.

The heavy silence fell between them again, although this time it lasted only for a moment.

"Sergeant Carlson," a voice boomed from up the stairs. That voice's deep, greasy tone made its owner an obvious guess. Chief Irons was paying a visit.

"Down in the garage, sir," Carlson answered.

The door to the garage opened slowly, and the chief lumbered through it, nervous hands played at the corners of his salt and pepper moustache

"What's the situation, Sergeant?" he asked.

"Initial force was hit badly, and retreated to barricade two. At the moment barricade two has no sight of the rioters," Carlson answered.

"Well, the disturbance is headed their way," the chief said "Have you had any success in contacting the Larch Street precinct?'

Jack Anderson answered that one, laughing a short bitter laugh, "Main radio's down, phone lines have been down all day."

"Well _officer_, what is working?" Irons asked, eyes narrowing.

Anderson half smiled and dangled the microphone by its cord like a dead rat, swaying it back and forth.

"The CB's work. By the way chief, do you have any idea when the phone lines will be up again? I suspect that people may be dialling 911 very shortly."

"Give me that," Irons snatched the microphone with one meaty hand.

Chief Irons held the mike up to his mouth and leaned on the squad car, one arm draped over the roof. Jesse noticed that the chief looked strikingly similar to Jackie Gleason's character from "Smokey and the Bandit" and had to keep himself from laughing out loud.

_-This is Sheriff Buford T. Justice, I am in HOT pursuit of the Bandit- _Jesse thought, and did in fact laugh. Martin gave him a quizzical glance, but no one else seemed to notice.

Irons keyed the mic. "Barricade two, come in, this is Chief Irons."

After several atempts, on several channels. Lieutenant Daniel Munroe' distinctive baritone answered. **"This is barricade two."**

"Have you come in contact with the rioters?"

A female voice cut in, her southern drawl was accentuated by the wailing of her car's siren. "**This is unit seventy-four, assailants are southbound on Oak, Ash, and Pine Street. Holy shit they've taken over the north quarter of the city, I am proceeding to barricade two.**"

Munroe cut back in. **"Roger that, seventy-four, you getting all of this Chief, I am... Oh my God... we have contact with the rioters... there are hundreds of them!"**

Irons wiped his forehead. "Maintain your position as long as possible."

Munroe's voice was an octave higher when he responded. **"What do we do if we can't hold the barricade?"**

"If it comes down to that, retreat, hold them at bay on Oak Street while civilians make their way to the precinct. If you can't hold Oak Street, regroup in front of the station."

Jesse could picture Munroe rolling his eyes. **"Ten-Four Chief. We will tr-" **

A new male voice buzzed through the speaker **"This is unit Ninety-One, these people... there's something wrong with 'em... they're stumbling like they're drunk, they're all too pale, and most of them are hurt, covered in blood."**

**"Cut the chatter Ninety-One!" **Munroe chided.

Someone else cut in, it took Jesse a moment to recognise it as Marvin Branagh as the quality was very poor. **"Dispatch, this is" **_-Radio Static __**"**_**Branagh the ...uh... rioters have blocked off our route to barricade two. We're returning to the precinct." **

Irons shrugged. "**Do what you have to."**

Munroe cut back in, voice high, words clipping. **"Dispatch...there IS something wrong with these folks, they look like walking CORPSES"** Someone shouted. "OPEN FIRE!", There was gunfire _**" **_**We will" **a shotgun blast drowned him out**"...our bes" **_Screaming and small arms fire __**"...**_**hold them off, but I don't." **_-Sound of squealing brakes, collision_ **"...arricade is already fa" **_-explosion_

Irons jerked the mic a half inch from his face. "Munroe, Munroe respond...Munroe? Barricade two?"

Radio static was the only answer he received.

Irons let the mic drop from his hands, it clunked off the Fury's side door and spun in lazy half circles.

"Anderson, stay on the radio, get back in contact with the men on the streets. Carlson, you're my runner. Keep the desk clerk informed, as to how the situation progresses. I will be… preparing…contacting…" Words failed him, and he turned his palms outward. "someone".

Chief Irons turned, likely in effort to make a quick escape, only to come nose to nose with Jesse and Martin. His big hands were shaking, and his bottom lip quivered. He looked like an oversized, frightened kid. No, that wasn't quite accurate; his eyes were wrong. To Jesse, Chief Irons had the unfocused gaze of.

_-A zombie-_

A corpse, or someone who was cataclysmically stoned on some powerful downer. He had heard the expression Ten thousand yard stare, but this was the ten million yard stare.

"Franks, Danielson," He eyed them.

"Yeah, Chief?"

_-Guy's scared to death, look at him shake- _

"Those police cars will be ready by the 28th, won't they?"

Jesse gave his head a quick shake. "Huh?"

"The auxiliary units, will they be ready?"

Jesse took his eyes off Chief Irons, in the squad car, Jack Anderson frowned and mouthed an incredulous "what?"

"Sure, Chief," he answered, trying to avoid eye contact.

"Good," Irons nodded casually "….good to know," Hands shaking and paper white, Chief Irons fled the scene, beating a hasty retreat upstairs.

Jesse turned to Martin. "What was _that _about?"

Martin, doing an uncanny impression of chief Irons' ten million yard stare didn't answer, and before Jesse could expand on the subject, a harsh barking sound grabbed his attention. Jesse turned to see the sergeant bent over, retching into one of the storm drains and realized that his own stomach, up until that point ignored, was getting ready to bring up the Buffalo wings and beer he had eaten at the Arklay Tavern that afternoon.

Turning away, Jesse managed to hold his lunch down, but the loosening/tightening sensation in his gut wasn't going away. Carlson straightened out, looking apologetic, and wiped the stringers of vomit away from his mouth. It seemed like he was going to say something, but the Squad car's radio came to life again, silencing him.

**"Dispatch, come in. We're two minutes away from the precinct, we have a wounded man on board."**

Anderson, who had gotten out of the car, dove in through the passenger side window, his gun belt drawing deep scratches through the cruiser's fresh paint, and grabbed the mike**. **"This is dispatch, are you in a squad car?"

"**No, we're in the paddy wagon."**

Anderson nodded. "All right. Park in the back garage, we'll have a stretcher ready.**"**

**"Ten four."**

A few years ago, Jesse had noticed that people in certain occupations seemed to be able to develop, after a few years of experience, a sort of rudimentary telepathic communication with others in their field. Police officers must be one of them, because Officer Anderson simply had to look at the sergeant to send him sprinting out of the garage. Jesse would bet money that Carlson was getting the stretcher out of the break room, and looking for Shaun Kelly. Shaun had been an Army medic prior to his career as a detective for the RPD.

Anderson took a quick look at Jesse and Martin,

"You two are going to be pulling stretcher duty, okay?"

Jesse nodded, but Martin stayed rooted in place. His lower lip was glossy with drool in the overhead fluorescents.

"Hey, Danielson?"

No response, Jesse turned to his co-worker. "Marty, what's up?"

Anderson walked over to Martin. He passed his hand in front of the old man's face; the old mechanic followed the motion, but offered no other reaction. For a moment Jesse actually felt contempt for him.

_-Why the hell wouldn't he be in shock? - _His conscience countered _-He's got a lot of friends on the force, not to mention his nephew, and he's lived in Raccoon City a long time. He cares about this place, and besides, you heard what was on the radio. People, people you work with, were getting hurt, maybe killed, and those noises in the background? They barely sounded human. So tell me, why the fuck aren't you cracking up, Jesse?-_

"Come on, Danielson; snap out of it...Danielson...come on!" Anderson said, still waving his hand back and forth.

Still no reaction from Martin. Anderson had had enough, he balled his waving hand into a fist, and rabbit punched the electrician in the sternum. Martin's "John Deere Farm Implements" baseball cap popped off his bald head, and for the second time that night he fell to the floor, wheezing.

"Hey, what the hell?" Jesse shouted.

Anderson turned to him with a look of fearful intensity on his mild features; veins bulged at his temples.

"We need his help, Goddammit!" he hissed through clenched teeth. "The Chief is losing it. That yes-man Carlson doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, and we've got injured on the way. So like it or not, I guess I'm in charge. Your old friend here is going to have to pull his own weight until the cavalry gets here." He glanced down at Martin. "Now, Danielson, can you get up?"

Martin got to his feet, clutching his stomach. He looked up at Jack and nodded miserably. That haunted look hadn't left his eyes.

"We've got injured on the way." Anderson said.

"I h-heard y-ou the f-f-first ti-me" He said, winded again.

"Sorry I hit you. You needed an…adjustment."

Martin simply nodded; it was likely too difficult to speak. The sound of squealing tires grabbed at their attention. As they turned, the SWAT paddy wagon literally flew down the ramp, approximately two feet off pavement. Flight for a heavy truck, is a very unnatural thing indeed, and often results in the death of the vehicle involved. The paddy wagon struck nose first in a shower of sparks, throwing up chips of concrete. There was a series of sharp pneumatic hisses as the driver pumped the air-brakes, the low-profile twenty-two inch radials smoked and shed their skins on the pavement, screeching in agony. In the movies, a truck could make a landing like that and continue along, the driver muttering something about, "that being a close one." This unfortunately, was no movie, and Jesse could see the front suspension flex, then shatter in the mechanical equivalent to a compound fracture. The crushed oil pan spewed hot, black, 15-40 in all directions.

_-Frame rails definitely got twisted there, it's going to have to go to a frame shop - _Jesse thought distractedly.

Even before the truck could come to a complete stop, the back door flew open. A dishevelled figure wearing the rags of an RPD uniform jumped out, spotted the three of them, and called out in a hoarse voice.

"Where the hell's that stretcher? Steve's hurt real bad, come on!"

As if on queue, a pitiful wailing came from inside the truck.

"OOWWWWAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

A strange liquid burbling, something like the sound someone makes while gargling mouthwash followed the screaming. It ended in a series of weak coughs.

Anderson and Jesse scrambled over to the truck. Martin, now entirely out of his stupor, loped over to their worktable no doubt in search of the first-aid kit he kept in his tool chest.

Steve Visser, the injured man inside the paddy wagon, looked like a mangled wreck. His abdomen was an exploded mess, one eye hung deflated out of it's socket, and somehow his bottom lip was missing, giving him an idiotic grin. Blood was bubbling up from his ruined mouth, and he was drifting in and out of consciousness. With any luck merciful shock would have settled in: a soothing balm for a mind and body no doubt on fire with pain.

Jesse lost the battle for dominance over his digestive system when he entered the truck and saw the young cop sprawled out on the floor. He performed a drunken man's about-face, and proceeded to puke on the inside wall, missing his intended target of the open door by three feet.

_-What could have done that? Who could have done that? Oh god, he looks like he was mauled by a bear-_

And the first aid kit Martin had brought fell from his hands, not a moment after he was inside. His jaw came unhinged, and what came out of his mouth was half a question, half a scream. "Oh, sweet Jesus! What the hell did you boys run into?"

Nobody answered. Anderson grabbed the first aid kit, fumbling at the latch with shaking hands, and began to unfold a triangular bandage. The gore streaked cop (whom Jesse could have identified as a long time friend from high school, Jim Hildebrand, had Jim not been so incredibly encrusted in filth and Jesse in the process of purging himself of his lunch) crouched next to Jack and continued to apply pressure to the Kevlar vest used as a makeshift bandage to hold Visser's organs in place.

There was a subtle change in the garage's quality of light and the squeal of old hinges. Jesse, who had managed to stumble out of the truck, looked up through teary eyes and saw Sergeant Carlson and a man in a brown suit. They were carrying a military style stretcher and running toward the truck. At the same time, Officer Lou Mancini was hauling Marv Branagh's unconscious body out of the truck's cab, his flabby arms straining under the weight. The Sergeant and the other man, now identifiable as Shaun Kelly, started to veer for Mancini, but the cop shook his head; blood flew from a long gash across his forehead.

"In the back," Lou yelled in his high pitched voice. "Visser's in there; he's pretty chewed up."

Mancini's choice of wording had been gruesomely accurate, "chewed up" was exactly what Visser looked like, a half-eaten piece of meat.

_-Well put you asshole. Go on and do something productive, give Lou a hand. He looks like he's ready to have a stroke for Christ's sake-_

Jesse walked over to the bulky cop, noting absently that Steve was screaming again, and some people were shouting. Mancini seemed to be on the knife's edge leading to panic attack, but excluding the cut on his forehead, he was physically intact. Branagh's only injury was a large goose egg at his temple, the brown skin surrounding it quickly turning an inflamed purple.

"You need a hand there, Lou?" Jesse asked

Lou jerked his head over to Jesse; his eyes were rolling wildly in their sockets

"Oh... yeah sure... He got knocked out when we stopped. I guess I hit the binders too hard."

"You okay?"

The officer lifted one hand to his forehead, smearing the blood. He stared at the crimson stains on his fingers for quite a long time before answering.

"I hit my head on the overhead switches when we landed, I'll live. We've gotta wake Marv up; we're going to need him"

"Okay. They've got a first aid box in the truck." Jesse said. "There's probably some smelling salts in there"

"I think we'd better stay out of their way. Hold on, I've got an idea."

He rolled Marv onto his side and bent over him. For a moment it looked like he was whispering something into the black cop's ear. Jesse was confused and dismayed when Lou opened his mouth and bit down on Marvin's earlobe. Susan would occasionally do this when she and Jesse were making love, but never with such ferocity. Lou was actually biting down with enough force to draw a thin rivulet of blood.

"What the fu-" Jesse started. Mancini's mind must have snapped.

Mancini must have known what he was doing, because after a second, Marv began to stir. Moments later, he was yelling and swatting at Lou's head.

"Stop it goddamn it! What the hell are you doing?" His face was twisted into a grimace of pain.

Mancini drew back, wiped a small spot of blood away from his mouth and into his moustache. Marv was already sitting up, one hand at his bleeding ear, the other gingerly feeling the goose egg at his temple. He didn't appear to be very impressed with Lou's impromptu first aid.

"How'd I get this bump?" he asked, dazed.

"You hit your head when we landed, knocked yourself out" Mancini explained

"Landed?" Marv turned toward the paddy wagon. "Oh. Great driving, _Maserati_."

"Hey!" Mancini poked a defensive finger at Marv. It was no secret that Mancini hated the nickname. "I got us here a fast as possible! Steve might have a chance because of it"

Jesse took a couple of steps away from him and Marvin flinched back, Mancini's strident voice must have been stabbing into his pounding head like a hot poker.

"Fine, forget I said anything. I'm sorry" Marvin said. "How are Steve and Hildebrand doing, anyways?"

"Jim's with you guys? " Jesse interrupted.

"Yeah, he is," Lou said. "Shaun Kelly's still in the truck with Steve...Oh hey..."

The trio got up and turned to see Kelly, his brown suit now with fresh bloodstains, step out of the truck. Detective Kelly didn't have to say anything, the expression of anguish, and the slump of his narrow shoulders, told it all. Steve Visser, twenty-five years old, former member of the RPD, had died in the back of a smashed truck.

"Steve's gone?" Lou asked.

"Yeah," Kelly said in a choked voice

Lou sagged like an animal taking a bullet as Martin and Carlson walked out of the back door, carrying Visser's wasted remains on the stretcher. Carlson's face had gone the colour of cottage cheese, his chest hitching up and down, and Martin's eyes had regained that distant cast. Anderson followed behind them, trying very hard to maintain his stony glare, but doing a poor job of it. Shaun Kelly gazed miserably at them for a moment, pulled out a pack of Pall-Mall unfiltered cigarettes, and then turned to follow Anderson, bending his head down to light his smoke. The small funeral procession proceeded slowly out of the garage, heading for the morgue. Anderson broke off and returned to the Fury and his attempts at coordinating the confusion in the streets.

The thick blanket of silence fell upon the four remaining men. Though, after a while, Mancini and Branagh began to speak in low voices, and Jim had finally emerged from the paddy wagon. He was stripped of his blood-stained shirt, exposing his ever-expanding waistline. Jesse saw or heard very little of this; the tiny voice in his brain was nagging again, but this time it had decided to use a megaphone.

_-What are you still doing here? There is bad shit happening out there, get out of town now! While there's still time... - _

"Fuck off," Jesse meant to whisper to himself, but what came out was a hoarse grunt. Both cops were within proximity to hear it.

"What was that, Jesse?" Marvin asked concerned.

"Huh? ... Nothing." Jesse muttered.

Jim walked over to them, wiping blood off his face with the torn arm from his uniform. He noticed Jesse and gave a slow nod of salutation. Jesse returned it. He had managed to once again silence the voice from within, and was glad to see that his one of his few close friends had survived whatever madness was going on outside.

"Are you hurt, Jim?" Marv asked.

"No, I don't think so. Most of this blood was Steve's."

Branagh nodded slowly, apparently deciding that remaining silent was the best thing to do. It was obvious that no one wanted to talk about what had happened, either to Steve or to Raccoon City, but Jesse couldn't stand this shocked silence a moment longer.

"Could somebody please tell me what happened out there? What could rip someone to shreds like that?" Jesse asked, and pointed in the direction they had taken Steve's body.

The three officers turned to look at Jesse, and then looked at each other with pensive faces. No one said a thing.

_-I don't think they're even sure what it was they ran into. Oh Christ, what the Hell is happening out there? -_

"I suppose Jesse has the right to know what happened out there, we should find the chief and tell him as well, before he gets any others killed." Marv said.

"Do you really think he'd believe us?" Jim interrupted, "I mean if someone came up and told you that damn near twenty police officers were killed by a bunch of zombies what would you say?"

"Well I th..." Marv began.

Jesse blinked and turned to Jim. "Wait a minute, what did you say there? _Zombies _did this?"

Jim didn't answer; he simply nodded his head gravely. At least Marv looked doubtful, giving Jesse's notion that this was some kind of very sick joke some credibility.

"I don't think they're really zombies, I mean they look and act like them for sure, but there's got to be a better explanation for it." He said to Jim.

"What else can they be? I recognized some of the people that were attacking us. Christ, one of them was my math teacher." Jim shot back He sounded more analytical that angry.

"You guys are shitting me, right?" Jesse asked. His head was starting to pound.

"No, bud. That's what we saw out there. Zombies, ghouls, corpses, or whatever you want to call them, they were straight out of a bad movie"

"Jesus." Jesse replied. He had been friends with Jim long enough to know when the big guy was bullshitting, and this was no bullshit.

_-Didn't see that one coming did you?-_

"How many were there?" Jesse asked.

"What, how many zom... uh... Rioters?" Marv asked.

"Yeah,"

"A group of about fifty or so attacked us, but we saw hundreds on the way back to the station. They've taken over the entire industrial area from the looks of it."

Jesse wiped his face, he was sweating. "Who are these people? Where'd they come from?"

"I don't know, but they were _eating _civilians, they _ate _the SWAT team." Marv said "Could all these people be the cannibal killers from a few months back? Are you sure you saw your math teacher, Jim?"

Jim shook his head. "They aren't people; they're not even human, not any more. No person can take a shotgun blast to the chest and keep walking. You saw them, our guns were useless."

Jesse had an idea.

"Could they have been on drugs or something?" Jesse interrupted. "Jim, remember what happened to Travis Marsh?"

Travis Marsh had gone to high school with Jesse and Jim. He had been nose tackle for the Arklay Tigers, and also a serious drug abuser. Shortly after graduation, possibly celebrating his football scholarship to OSU, Travis went to a party and snorted a half-gram of PCP. In a drug induced frenzy he began tearing the house apart with a table leg. Dave Ford, then a rookie, was the first officer on the scene. The minute Marsh saw the cop, he charged at him, screaming gibberish and wielding the table leg high above his head. Dave had first tried to dissuade the 280-pound juggernaut with pepper spray, but when it proved ineffective he had to shoot, putting three slugs through Marsh's centre of mass. Travis did not die, however. With his body full of holes he continued his lunge, tackling Officer Ford, and then beating him with the club, all the while bellowing in a voice like a bullhorn. Dave suffered internal injuries, a fractured skull, a broken jaw, and a dislocated shoulder. He had to switch the gun to his unbroken arm, and unload another five rounds point blank into Travis' face before the big man went down for the count. An autopsy later revealed that one of Dave's first bullets had torn right through Marsh's heart; he should have died instantly.

_-Maybe that's what these "zombies" really are, a whole cult of cannibalistic PCP junkies from up in the Arklay mountains who have decided to come into town for an evening snack... Come on, that's stupid! - _

"Travis Marsh?" Jim frowned. "Oh yeah; he snorted a bunch of PCP. Dave Ford shot him three or four times and he just kept coming. I don't know Jesse, the people out there looked dead, not stoned."

"Maybe Jesse's not that far off." Marvin interjected. "We were in the industrial part of town. I can think of at least three chemical plants in that area."

"IMRIE, Umbrella Chemicals, and SAR-Chem. They're all in the same block." Mancini added. "You think this could have been caused by a chemical spill?"

"I suppose it's possible" Marv nodded.

"No," Jim said. "I tell you, no chemical, or mix of chemicals did that. When we shot them, they didn't _bleed_, and they didn't _bleed _because they were _dead._"

The four men went silent long enough for the wind to carry a distant sound to them.

**Pop-pop-pop-bang-pop**

_-Gunshots, it sounds like a war out there- _

"You guys hear that?" Lou asked.

"Yeah," Jim said.

"Me, too." Marvin nodded. "I guess there's no sense arguing about how it happened when all that really matters is that it's happening. We'd better get a move on. Jim, how about you go and fill detectives in on what's happening. Lou, you're in the chief's good books, so you'd better be the one to tell him and see what he has to say. I'm going to search the West wing for anyone who's still here, we'll see if we can get everyone to meet in the lobby. Does that sound okay to you guys?"

The two cops nodded, Lou and Marvin turned and headed for the door. Jim lingered a moment longer.

"How are you taking all of this Jess?" He asked, smiling a bit "I know it's hard to swallow, but that's what's going on out there."

Jesse sighed, pulled off his Nike baseball cap and ran a hand through his short hair.

"I know, I'm okay I guess, I believe you guys."

_-Liar-_

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yeah, now that you mention it, you can give me a smoke." Jim said, and flashed a quick grin.

"This I can do," Jesse said. He pulled out two cigarettes, handing him one, and tucking the other behind his ear "but seriously Jim, is there anything I can do?"

"Sure, you can let me use your lighter, and you can get everyone you meet to go up into the lobby, we'll figure out what to do from there." He lit up; his hands shook. "Oh yeah, could you go into my car, it's parked on Oak Street. I've got my rifle and a few boxes of ammo in the back. We might need it."

"All right Jimmy, no problem."

"I'll see you in a few minutes I guess." He said, fumbled through his pocket, and threw Jesse the keys to his Toyota. He then turned to go upstairs with the others.

Jesse gave a half-hearted wave goodbye, pulled the cigarette from behind his ear, and then lit up. He took a few drags before realizing that for some reason he really didn't want the smoke at all. The Marlboro was dropped from his hand then crushed to death with a scuffed work boot.

Jesse was alone in the garage now. The reality of the situation was finally beginning to seep into his mind, but although his instincts were still screaming foul, there was no terror, no panic. He supposed that he was strange that way. Throughout his life he never let himself get caught up in emotions. People often said "Just wait until it sinks in." Well, with Jesse things never really sunk in. It seemed as though he could float through life, only slightly affected by any great joy or sadness. He was aware of this, but he couldn't or wouldn't want to change it, life was easier this way. When he lost his virginity in grade eleven to a flat-chested girl named Kelly Sanford, there were no trumpets or bells, no feelings of accomplishment. They just lay there on his twin bed, Jesse smoking one of his mother's Kools, no big deal. Even when his mother died he felt no great sadness, he loved his mom a lot, but hey, life goes on. He put on his poker face, and let the hollow part inside of himself spread like the cancer that eventually claimed Janet Franks' life.

_-Don't think about it now, Come on, there will be time for that later, get a move on-_

"Okay, let's rock," he said to himself in a passable Bruce Willis voice.

Halfway down the hall leading to the stairs, Jesse met up with Martin; the old man looked a bit like Rodin's sculpture "The Thinker" his brow furrowed deep with worry.

"Hey, old timer." Jesse said, trying to stimulate a bit of good-natured humour.

"Hmmmf" Martin grunted in return, not making eye contact.

_-Okay, that didn't work-_

"You gonna be okay, Marty?" Jesse asked, changing his approach.

"I'm worried is all, but I'm all right. You hear that they're having a meeting upstairs?" Martin asked.

"Yeah I do, but you're going the wrong way, I can draw you a map if you want." Jesse said, a bit more good-natured humour in use.

At least this time Martin laughed a bit, but there was no force behind the laughter and he had yet to smile, or make eye contact.

"Just gotta run a message to Anderson. You go on without me." he mumbled.

"All right." Jesse said.

Martin was already walking down the hallway grumbling quietly to himself. Jesse was concerned about him, but he was no psychologist, and if Martin didn't want to talk, he didn't want to talk. The old man was as stubborn as they come when he wanted to be. Jesse shrugged, and then ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.


	4. The Shelter

**AN ****Chapter updated Oct 7 2010**

**September 26 1998 8:30 PM- The Shelter**

The detective's offices were completely deserted, the overhead fans slowly churning the stuffy air. The hallway outside was equally devoid of traffic. Jesse must have been one of the last people from the east wing to make it to the lobby. The lobby itself was a huge room. Three story high marble and oak walls stretched up to meet an arched ceiling, and the meticulously waxed floor with its inset RPD crest would always gleam softly in the low wattage light. It was undoubtedly the nicest looking room in the entire station, but also the loneliest, the only permanent residents being the receptionist, and whichever dispatcher was on duty. Both would look far away, sequestered behind the island of a desk that sat just behind the fountain Irons had brought in a few years back. That night, however, the big room had the air of some police convention; uniformed officers and civilian staff stood in small groups mulling over the situation. Jesse only caught disjointed pieces of conversation as he threaded his way through the crowd.

"Heard the SWAT team got hit hard, they were carrying MP-5s, what could-"

"Goddamn, I feel useless just..."

"So then Hildebrand said that we should all head to the lobby, and I say-"

"-Hell are we supposed to do to stop a bunch of-"

"-are still down, I tried to call-"

The doors at last. With a heavy pull. they swung open, letting in the scent associated with end of season barbeques and deer hunting, cool sweet fall air. The imminent sounds of the battle being fought somewhere north of the station jarred against the cool breeze and the peaceful late evening sky. Something was wrong out there, that much was certain. Almost every building looked deserted, and there was no traffic of any kind. It was as if the entire city was holding its breath. Jesse jogged down the street, wanting to get back to the station as soon as possible.

Before he knew it, he was a half-block down Oak Street, standing in front of his friend's rusted Tercel wagon. And at that moment, a thought occurred to him. He could easily start the car, put the pedal to the metal, head west out of town, and take Jordan Road all the way to Latham. He'd be there in forty-five minutes.

_-Great idea. They won't even know what happened to you. Get yourself out of here while there's still time-_

Jesse considered it, he even put managed to unlock the door, but the minute he saw the little lock knob pop up, his conscience got a hold of him.

_- Sure, betray a friend. Turn your back on Jim and the others... run like a dog. You'll regret it for the rest of your life-_

Jesse sighed; he couldn't do it. Instead he walked to the back of the car and opened the hatch. His friend's .300 Winchester bolt action was sitting behind the rumble seat, half buried under a pile of oily rags, paper targets and camouflage hunting apparel. A quick rummaging discovered two, fifty round boxes of ammunition as well. He slung the rifle over his shoulder, stashed the ammo boxes into his coveralls' deep side-pockets, and resumed his jog to the station. The surreal atmosphere that sat thick in the empty streets was far too disquieting; at least the precinct held some order. He had to swerve to the sidewalk as a police cruiser and an orange Raccoon City Public Works truck, loaded with riot barricades sped down the street. Before he could swing around for a double take, the car had already passed him and performed a power turn down Ash Street.

Jesse's jog turned into an all out run, and he was feeling every cigarette he had sucked back in the past thirteen years. By the time he had reached the doors he was wheezing, reminding himself that he should really try to quit.

Jim was standing among a few other cops, now wearing a fresh patrol shirt. He walked over to the cop, still attempting to get his breathing under control. Jim noticed him and smiled a bit.

"You found it?" he asked.

"Better me than your kid, you should lock that thing up!" Jesse handed over the gun, ammo, and keys.

"You sound like the wife."

"You're welcome, did Mancini, talk to Irons?"

"I don't know, he hasn't come back yet."

"Oh, Well they'd better hurry up. It sounds like there's a real war going on out there." Jesse said.

"I know." For a moment Jim's strong Nordic features contorted into an emotion that Jesse had rarely seen on the big man's face.

The emotion was fear.

"What do you plan on doing with your rifle anyways?" Jesse asked, changing the subject.

"Well, we lost our sniper out there, Stevens; he was on the SWAT team. Not that it really matters; Irons stashed both of our rifles earlier this week when those attacks started. Something to do with the threat of terrorists seizing the station or some damn thing...Idiot. I figure that this gun is the next best thing, so I'm going to climb up to the water tower on the heliport and see if we can give the guys a little covering fire."

"Sounds like a pretty good plan."

"Course it's a good plan. Gimme another smoke before I head off."

"Ashley's gonna smell it on your breath." Jesse handed him a pair.

Jim, slipped the cigarettes in his pocket and mumbled something that sounded a lot like "I hope she will."

"You need a light?"

He shook his head. "I'll grab some matches from the squad room."

"All right, good luck."

Jim flashed a shadow of his familiar grin. "Don't need luck if you're good enough." He slung the rifle more comfortably over his shoulder, and then turned to head upstairs.

And that was the last anyone ever saw of Officer Hildebrand.

All heads in the room turned, and conversation died down when the door to the patrol office opened. Chief Irons, along with Mancini and Lieutenant Brennan walked in. Irons stepped in front of the big reception desk and paused for a few seconds before speaking. Jesse noticed that the Chief seemed to be back to his normal self: calm and a bit snotty. This was a relief, because the way Irons had acted in the garage scared the hell out of him.

"Gentlemen," Irons began, although there were quite a few women in the room as well. "As you all know by now, there is a disturbance of great magnitude in the Northland Industrial park. I regret to say that several officers have already been lost, and that it sounds as though many of Raccoon City's very citizens are to blame. Reports so far state that these attackers have been... altered... somehow, causing them to become incredibly violent, attacking with their bare hands and showing no concern toward their own injuries."

The room was a wash of shocked faces. To hear the Chief of police say these things was obviously driving the message home for many people.

Irons went on.

"This morning, the fire at the phone company office took out every line in town, and according to Officer Anderson, our main radio isn't functional either. Fortunately the two-way radios in the patrol cars are still working; therefore we are still in contact with the officers in the streets. Before our radio net stopped working I gave all units the order to cordon off the industrial part of town. All North-South streets have been blocked off with riot barricades, and although there was some initial confusion, our defences are still holding strong. However, in case the barricade does fall, all members are to retreat down Oak Street, and regroup here. Therefore we need to be ready to use this precinct for shelter. All main level windows are to be boarded shut; I will assign people after the briefing. Also earlier this week, the station's weapons and ammunition were dispersed throughout the building; we must make it a priority to retrieve as much of it as possible. Lieutenant Munroe was in charge of that operation; however, he is at the barricade at the moment. Until we locate him, the precinct will have to be checked room by room. A weapons search party will be formed after the briefing."

The Chief paused for a moment.

"Of course this business with the barricade is only temporary. There is no way our defences can hold forever. Our job is to buy enough time for help to arrive, and to protect as many civilians as possible. Reaching the outside may prove to be difficult as virtually every line of communication has been severed, but help will come. Rest assured of that fact."

The Chief stepped aside, and Lt. Brennan, who was the shift supervisor that night, stepped up.

"All right," Brennan started. "All uninjured uniformed officers are to come with me. We're going to the barricade. If you've your extra clips in your lockers, grab 'em. You'll probably be needing them. I'm not sure how many PCs are out there, so we may have to ride five per car. When you're in the cruisers set your CB's on fourteen. Carlson and Anderson are running dispatch on that channel, and once you get out there, keep calm, and save your ammo. No doubt it's going to be a very long night."

He clapped his hands together, like a school teacher in a crowd of students.

"Okay, that's it, let's go."

About twenty officers broke off from the group, heading either out the front door to the row of squad cars, or to their lockers in the patrol office. In total there were eleven people left in the lobby including the Chief, Jesse, Martin, Mancini and Branagh. There was also the night cleaning crew, a few detectives and two clerical workers.

Irons stepped up again

"For those of you who are left, the mechanics and janitors can work together boarding up windows. Also, be sure to lock all doors leading outside. Detectives Allen and Silverman, assemble two teams and begin searching for the weapons caches. One team can check the east wing; the other can take the west. I will stay in the lobby in case anyone shows up looking for instructions."

Jesse walked over to Martin, the janitor, Tony DaSilva, and a young man who was obviously related to Tony. Martin's eyes were still haunted and unfocused, as if in a dream.

_- What's the matter with you old man? Why are you taking this so hard? Come on Marty, snap out of it, I can't do this on my own-_

"Okay, so how we going to do this thing?" DaSilva asked Martin in his heavy Portuguese accent.

It didn't look like the Martin was going to give any response.

"Don't really know." he finally said, looking at the floor.

Jesse stepped in, seeing the janitor's brow furrow with confusion.

"How about we split up; it'll get done a lot faster that way."

"That sound good to me, you go east I go west. Like Irons say." Tony paused for a moment. His bushy eyebrows raised, and then he added, "I got an idea what we can use for boards. In the meeting room there's a closet, with old wood tables that fold. They'd work real good, no?"

"Sure" Jesse said, "That'll work fine; there's also a few old pieces of thick plywood outside by the Dumpster. You need any tools? I could borrow you a hammer."

"No, that's okay, I got tools. Okay, so we go now." He turned to the other Janitor, Fernando. "Come on you donkey."

Both custodians turned and walked out of the room. Jesse was going to go to the dumpster and get that plywood, but he would leave Martin here. Considering the state the old man was in, it would be simpler just to do it himself. The two walked out the lobby, into the hallway and reception area for the detective's office. There was a window right by the door they had walked through.

"I'm going to get some stuff. I'll be back in a minute. Can we use your drill?" Jesse asked.

Martin didn't answer.

Jesse's hands tightened into fists. He was normally very slow to anger, but he didn't know what was wrong with the old electrician, and he was losing patience quickly.

"Look, I need your help here. What's wrong with you, anyways?"

Martin turned his old eyes up at him. He spoke in a low whisper. "I couldn't stand the sound anymore... My legs wouldn't move."

This was not the response Jesse had expected.

"Oh." Was all Jesse could manage. "Okay... Wait here then."

Jesse walked away, more worried than ever. Not only was the entire town under attack, and the RPD office being readied for a siege, but his co-worker was practically comatose and speaking nonsense.

_-Martin can't stand the sound. The sound of what? He started acting funny after Munroe stopped transmitting from the barricade. Was he talking about the sound of the battle? -_

Jesse couldn't make sense of it. The sounds broadcast to them from the streets were terrifying. But were they enough to send a person into that deep a shock? He didn't think so.

As he made his way to the dumpster located in the precinct's back parking lot, he stopped and looked at his watch. It read 9:17 PM. Three hours earlier, his biggest worry was getting a distributor to set properly so he could clock out and visit his fiancée. How quickly a person's life, and very sense of reality, could change.

"I want to go home." he said to himself.

There was a guard shed next to the trash bin, and Jesse poked his head in. Whoever was supposed to be on duty that night had obviously been sent out to the fight in the streets, because it was abandoned, the guard's coffee and keys still sitting on the desk. Jesse grabbed the keys and shoved them into his jeans' pocket. He would give them to one of the higher-ups once he made it back to the lobby.

"**Caw!" **

Jesse's heart nearly stopped, the sudden sound startling him badly. His eyes shot to the direction it came from, high and to the left.

_-What the? A crow. I didn't know they came out at night-_

A crow, the biggest one he had ever set eyes on, was perched atop one of the parking lot's arc-sodium lights. Jesse had never seen one out this late before, but there it sat, ruffling its oily black feathers, and fixing its beady eyes on him.

"**Caw!" **it called out again.

Jesse didn't like crows to begin with, and this one was starting to make him nervous. Well aware that the bird had its eyes on him the entire time, he sidestepped over to where those plywood pieces were, and piled several of them on a larger four-by-eight sheet. He dragged them across the lot and down the ramp into the underground garage, glad to be out from under the crow's watchful gaze. Jesse knew that he was starting to jump at shadows, but couldn't help it. He was alone, unarmed, and bad things were happening all over town. He figured that he had the right to be a bit jumpy.

_-Okay, we've got the boards, now grab the tools and get moving. Time's wasting- _

He dropped the plywood and walked over to where he and the other mechanics kept their toolboxes; he needed Martin's cordless drill and some screws. The drill was found easily, but he had to search a bit to find suitable fasteners. Finally, a box of two-inch, pan head-screws was discovered on one of the shelves.

_-Not quite what a carpenter would use, but they'll work just fine, all right let's go -_

Heavily loaded, Jesse went back to where he had left Martin. When he entered the hallway, he noticed that the old man was standing in the exact same spot he had been; it didn't look like he had moved an inch. Jesse sighed, handed Martin the drill, and lit a cigarette.

_-To hell with the no smoking rule. These are extenuating circumstances. -_

The two began boarding up the window. Martin offered speech only when spoken to, and did only what he was told to do. Jesse felt as if he was working with a robot, and to see his friend like this was frustrating him more and more by the second. What bothered him most was the fact that he still had no idea what was wrong with him.

The two mechanics spent the next hour and a half visiting every first story room in the deserted east side of the precinct, barricading all windows they came across. The plywood had been quickly used up, and so they ended up smashing apart wooden tables and desks for planks. By the time they had finished, a bloated yellow harvest moon had risen, the last windows offering only darkness and shadows.


	5. Regrouping

**AN ****Chapter u****pdated Oct 8 2010**

**September 26 1998 10:45 PM- Regrouping**

The weapons search party had found quite the arsenal. A small city built entirely of ammunition boxes sat on the dispatch desk. Beside the pile of ammo, lay an MP-5 submachine gun, two shotguns, and a good number of pistols. Officers Mancini and Branagh stood at either side of the weapons, and the Chief was standing in the northeast corner of the lobby conferring with a few of the detectives. Also, a group of six civilians were standing by the main doors, looking anxious and worried.

Jesse didn't know who to report to, but figured that he should talk to Branagh. Chief Irons seemed to be preoccupied, and Marv always seemed to be knowledgeable of everything that went on in the station. Another reason being that Marv was very approachable, while Irons tended to view the mechanics as lowly serfs. He walked over to the black cop, leaving Martin standing solemnly like a cigar store Indian by the doors to the East wing.

"Marv," Jesse said "I've got a question for you."

"Sure." He hooked his thumbs in his gunbelt. "Shoot."

"Me and Marty are done boarding up the windows on the east side. Got any idea what we could do now? I'd ask the Chief, but I don't want to interrupt."

He scratched his goatee and frowned. "I'm really not the one giving orders, but if I were you, I'd find out how those janitors are doing on the other side of the building. Maybe they could use a hand."

As usual, Marv was helpful and thoughtful. Jesse could tell why so many RPD staffers thought highly of the man.

"Good idea." Jesse said "I can't believe I hadn't thought of it myself. Thanks!"

"Not a problem." Branagh replied.

Jesse walked away, toward the doors leading to a reception area on the west wing. He didn't even bother telling Martin where he was going. The past hour and a half spent with him led Jesse to believe that the old man has had some sort of nervous breakdown. Nothing that he said or did helped at all. If Martin wanted to deal with his demons alone, so be it.

The waiting room for the patrol office was deserted, but Jesse could hear voices. There was a window that opened into the office on the north wall; the voices were coming from that direction. Jesse looked through and saw Officers Anderson and Carlson in the supervisor's room, Anderson speaking quickly into a microphone.

_-Running dispatch from in there I guess-_

The dispatcher's face suddenly crunched into a scowl.

"What?" Anderson gasped into the mike.

There was a garbled reply that Jesse could not make out. Though it mustn't have been very good news, as both cops looked like they had lost a pint of blood. The radio then went silent. Anderson tried to raise someone, but there was no response. He then told the sergeant to get Chief Irons. Carlson nodded and ran out of the room like a man fleeing a ticking bomb.

The situation looked like it was going from bad to worse very quickly, and Jesse wanted to know what was coming their way. The two janitors were now completely forgotten; he lit another smoke and anxiously awaited the return of Carlson and the Chief.

A moment later, the door flew open and Irons stepped through first.

"What is it now?" Irons asked; he was wringing his hands.

Anderson described the situation as calmly as he could, and Jesse watched the Chief's round face darken, and then tighten into a strained grimace.

Apparently, while almost every cop was at the barricades, there had been some sort of mass exodus from the residential district that was situated south of both the police station and the industrial park. For reasons yet unexplained, hundreds of people had jumped into their cars and headed north, most likely in attempt to reach the access road to the interstate. Irons had failed to make any serious provisions for traffic control on the south side of town, and so the citizens cruised along unobstructed until they ran into the barricade. The streets were now being choked with cars; tactical retreat had become impossible. The barricade had fallen into confusion, and the officers were stuck, trapped between murderous rioters and panicked civilians.

Irons tried the radio several times on several channels. He only received the occasional panicked pleas for help, common to a city stuck in a meat grinder.

"Wait by the radio. Tell anyone you contact to return to the station, I'll brief the others." Irons nearly sprinted to the lobby; a dark patch of sweat had formed between his shoulder blades.

Carlson sighed, sat down and adjusted his bifocals. "Those were kind of vague orders, huh?"

Anderson looked up at the sergeant, and once again laughed his bitter laugh.

"It doesn't really matter, they're probably all dead by now anyways." He picked up the microphone. "Attention all RPD, return to Oak Street precinct for further orders. I say again, all RPD, return to Oak Street Precinct.

Jesse really hoped that Anderson was wrong, but at the same time a dark cloud of worry hung over his head. Hundreds of violent assailants were headed downtown unheeded, and the station had eight officers defending it.

_-Nine if you count the Chief-_

Depressed by the thought of it all, he left the waiting room, resuming his search for the two Portuguese janitors. If all those rioters were headed their way, the station would need to become a fortress.

Tony DaSilva was two hallways over, cursing loudly in his mother tongue to a long bank of uncovered windows. His young partner stood further down the hall and was fiddling with what looked like a fuse box built into the wall. Jesse stopped for a second, and then realized what they were doing. The windows in this room were protected with electric shutters of 1940's vintage; a hallway in the east wing had them, too. When Jesse closed the east wing shutters there had been a loud snap and he was showered with dust as they slammed down for the first time in decades,

"What's the problem, Tony?"

The janitor turned around. "What? Oh, these stupid things don't close." He poked a hairy knuckled finger at the windows. "Fernando been trying with the wires but he not so smart with that kind of stuff."

"Shitty." Jesse frowned. "Can I give it a try?"

"Go ahead." Tony said, "Hey Fernando, let Mr. Mechanic fix it."

The younger janitor stepped aside, and let Jesse have a look. It took ten minutes of poking and prodding and several mild electrocutions before the motors snapped to life in a pyrotechnic display of blue sparks, and the metal shutters slammed shut with a dusty "Clank". Tony thanked him warmly and launched him forward with a powerful clap on the back, and then the two men left, explaining to him that they had a few more windows to board up.

As Jesse walked back to the lobby, he could hear the chaos outside every time he walked past a window. The streets were a cacophony of squealing tires, horn blasts, screams and gunshots; he also heard what sounded like a squadron of helicopters race by at treetop level.

_-Maybe it's help from the outside. Someone might have gotten a hold of the army-_

Excited by the idea of rescue, or at least the arrival of reinforcements, Jesse spun on his heels and headed towards the heliport. He wanted to see what was going on, and to check if Jim needed anything.

Jesse was disappointed to find that the helicopters he had heard were not from the army, at least not the U.S. army. They were too far away to identify definitively, but they looked like Soviet troop transports. They weren't on a rescue mission either as they were buzzing around the industrial park in the area of Umbrella's chemical plant. Worse yet, the rooftop landing pad was completely deserted; Jim had disappeared. Jesse walked out a little bit and looked up at the water tower that sat on one corner of the roof. No sign of his friend.

_-What the hell? He said he'd be right here-_

"Jim?" he called out "Jim, you here?"

No answer. Jesse's heart quickened its pace. He walked around the rooftop, calling his friend's name, hearing nothing except the noisy confusion in the streets. Jesse stopped dead in his tracks as he spotted something at the base of the tower, several tiny brass cylinders. He walked over and picked one of them up. They were 9mm bullet casings, fifteen of them in total, and still warm to the touch. Ten feet away, lay the clip for an automatic pistol; it had a full load of bullets in it. As Jesse picked it up, it had nearly slipped out of his hands. It was wet and greasy with...

Jesse dropped the clip as if it were red hot. It was covered in blood.

_-Oh God! What happened? Where are you Jim? -_

Looking around, it was now fairly obvious that something violent had occurred up here. Upon closer inspection Jesse saw a spattering of blood, leading from the base of the tower to the edge of the roof. Jesse peered over and saw no sign of his friend, no body, no bloodstain, just a metal object that twinkled in the moonlight. It was a set of keys; Jesse could see Jim's bottle opener keychain attached.

Jesse stood up, prepared to search the streets below for his friend, but suddenly there was a whistling sound and something struck the top of his head. Ducking down and running towards the door, Jesse turned and saw a large black bird swoop down towards him. He dropped to the tarred roof at the last second, the crow missing him by a few inches.

_-Holy shit! I'm being attacked by a fucking crow- _Jesse's frantic mind screamed.

He scrambled to his feet. The crow made another pass, ripping a piece of fabric from the shoulder of his coveralls.

"**Caw!" **it cried out. Several more answered back from close by.

Jesse charged through the door; there was a meaty sounding smack as the bird flew into it. Sprinting down the hallway, he kept his eyes on the bank of windows, and saw nearly a dozen crows circling outside.

_Crash!_

There was an explosion of glass beside him. One of the crows had smashed in a window and was now sprawled on the floor, its neck badly broken. Several of its companions were flying through the open window, crying out, giving pursuit. In an all out terror Jesse ran to the end of the hall, wrenching the door open, slamming it shut behind him just in time.

He slumped to the carpeted floor, exhausted, his cigarette-damaged lungs aching badly. The birds screeched and cried on the other side of the door, as if in bloodlust. Jesse now had a very good idea what had happened to his friend. Jim would have had no clue what was happening until it was too late, and didn't stand a chance if those insane crows had surrounded him. Jesse got back up on his feet, shaking badly from the combination of fear and adrenaline. He shambled out of the room, headed back downstairs, nearly hysterical.

_-Gotta tell the others, Gotta tell the Chief, Gotta get out of here! -_

There was an outdoor stairway nearby that would take Jesse to the main floor, it was by far the shortest way to the lobby from his location, but there was no way he would venture back outside. He chose to take the flight of stairs on the West Side and arrive safe and sound.

Upon entering the lobby, the first thing noticeable was the large group of civilians standing together in the northeast corner. He was surprised to see that actually knew some of them, there was Raccoon Herald reporter, Ben Bertolucci, a local used car salesman who's ads monopolized late night TV air time, his grade 6 school teacher, and...

Jesse suddenly felt weak. His terror from the attack vanished and was replaced by a dismayed confusion.

_-Oh shit, what the Hell is she doing here? -_

A young woman was in conversation with an Asian woman in a red evening dress; she had her back to him but he recognized her all the same.

"Stacey?" Jesse gasped.

The girl turned, surprised, and confirmed Jesse's fear. She had sun-bleached brown hair, tanned skin with freckles, and a straight-hipped athletic build. She was Stacey Kelso, his fiancée's sister.

"Jesse?" Stacey took a few deep breaths, and her face, a brave façade until that point, crumbled into that of a the terrified twenty-year-old girl that she rightly was. A second later, she was running over, throwing her arms around him and crying in deep sobs that hurt his ears. Her heartbeat thumped against his chest; her face was greasy with tears and sweat.

"Oh Jesse, they were _killing _people!" she sniffled and gasped for air. "What happened to them?"

Unsure what to do, but shaking as well, Jesse held her tight, rocking her slightly and muttering "it's okays" until her tears were gone.

She drew away from him, wiping her wet face with the back of her hand.

"Sorry Jesse, I couldn't keep that in anymore, I didn't mean to..."

"Don't apologise." Jesse said and stuffed his trembling hands into his pockets. "Everyone's freaked-out.

He adjusted his ballcap; his fingers fell on the tear that crow had made.

_-Crows, fucking crows-_

"What are you doing in town anyways?"

"I came home for the weekend; I went to Dairy Queen with a few friends." She wiped her face. "There were all these people panicking, and then these... things... attacked us. I ran to the station. I don't know what happened to the others."

It didn't make sense. There was no Dairy Queen in the Northland Industrial Park, where the attackers were.

"Which Dairy Queen did you go to?" Jesse asked, confused.

"The one on Spruce Street. Why?"

The ice cream shop on Spruce Street was situated in Raccoon City's Cider district, directly South of the precinct and downtown, and it did_, _in fact, make sense. The reason everyone had fled that area in attempt to escape to the North was because they were being attacked as well.

"We didn't know that the Cider district was being attacked." Jesse said.

"Should we tell someone?"

"I think it's too late now." Jesse shook his head. "From the sounds of it, we're all stuck here. We'll have to wait for rescue."

"Oh." Was all she could say.

"Where's Susan?" she asked after a brief moment. "Is she in town?"

"No, she's still in Latham. She had to work tonight."

Last night Susan had been called in to cover a sick co-worker's shifts and would be working double time for the rest of the week. Jesse had been understandably upset when she had told him the news, but now it came as a great relief. Susan normally slept over at his place four to five nights a week. Now she would be far too busy to travel to the city and inadvertently put herself in danger.

"That's good." She nodded. "I hope Mom, Dad, and Owen are okay. They're at home right now."

The Kelsoes lived in the Cider district, and although it dismayed Jesse to think that they could be in trouble, chances were that they were either dead at home or stuck somewhere in the streets. As he looked at Stacey and saw his thoughts reflected in her intelligent green eyes, his heart turned into a chunk of lead in his chest. He knew that more tears were coming any second, both his and Stacey's, but at that moment Lou Mancini burst through the main door, gulping air like a fish on a dock.

"We need some help!" he shouted between breaths. "We got officers stuck in a car; we've gotta flip it over."

The large group of people stood fast. An overweight man with a rust coloured birthmark on his face muttered that there was no way he would set foot outside, and Jesse couldn't help but agree with him. All the same, Jesse's feet forced him forward, and he ran over to the cop. Stacey followed beside him. Tony DaSilva and his partner joined as well.

Lou surveyed the four of them, apparently deciding that it would be enough to do the job, nodded and ran back outside.

"Follow me and stay close." he yelled over his shoulder. "It's crazy out there."

Jesse had been outside only a few hours ago, how a city could change so quickly boggled the mind. Downtown Racoon City had turned into a war zone. A block south of the station, an overturned city bus belched coal coloured smoke into the air as it burned, and north of them, the Oak Street/Fisson Avenue intersection was blocked by a multi car pileup. At least three cop cars were involved, along with four other vehicles. There were seven officers standing next to a cruiser that sat on its passenger side, wedged against a sport utility vehicle, and they were firing into a small crowd of people that lurched toward them, despite the hail of bullets. As Jesse neared, he could see what Irons had meant about the attackers being "altered".

_-Screw altered, they're dead! Jim had been right. Zombies! -_

Jesse accepted the fact fairly easily; he had no time to panic. The overturned cruiser had three live cops inside it. the officers in the back were locked in and unconscious, and the dead driver impeded the front passenger's escape. The zombies, or whatever they were, would be on them in less than a minute. If these officers stood a chance, Jesse and the others would have to act quickly.

"Let's go" Tony shouted.

The four got in position. Jesse wasn't sure about the two janitors, but he knew Stacey ran track and field and was a lot stronger than she looked. Also, despite his being thin, Jesse could lift more than his fair share. He figured that flipping this car shouldn't be too difficult, and was right, with a few jerks the car was rocking; a few more and it began to tip toward the ground.

"Look out!" Jesse hollered to the cops in front of the falling car.

They scrambled out of its way just in time, and the squad car slammed back on its wheels with a heavy crunch. The left side window exploded into square chunks as the dead driver's head cracked against it. The three cops were pried out in no time.

As they sprinted back to the station, Jesse now understood how bad things were. He saw one of the attackers, a man in work clothes, get shot in the throat. He saw the wound flower open upon entry, saw blood and chips of shattered spine spray out as the bullet exited the base of it's neck. The man's vapid expression didn't change, didn't even register the pain. It was shot a second, then a third time before it collapsing. Jesse's mind tried to categorize what he was witnessing.

_-You'll go nuts before it happens. Just accept it, and drop it- _

It was now fairly obvious that the city had been lost. If there had ever been any chance of Raccoon City's salvation, it had been destroyed along with the barricade. From the sound of things, the zombies had made it from one corner of town to the other. Jesse was sure that if Hell had a soundtrack, it would be the sound of this dying city. It seemed as though everyone in town was screaming a tormented chorus, accompanied by the wail of emergency vehicle's sirens, the heavy gunplay providing percussion.

Raccoon City was doomed, but not necessarily all of its residents. They could weather the storm in their fortress until someone outside realized what had happened and came to rescue.

_-You hope-_

"I hope."

The next half-hour was spent in the lobby. Chief Irons had disappeared, leaving detective Allen in charge. Shaun Kelly had set up a triage station to treat the wounded, and the remains of the RPD began to trickle back in small groups. That morning, just over one-hundred police officers had reported in for roll call. Of that hundred, two dozen still stood, wild eyed and dirty, reloading spent clips with shaky hands. Jesse knew most of them, although some had been stationed at the Larch Street precinct. He began to idly pick out faces. Dave Ford stood alone by the reception desk, cradling a non-police issue shotgun like a newborn. Jack Anderson and Sergeant Carlson were talking to George Scott. Lou Mancini and a tall cop with a receding hairline were handing out ammunition and weapons. It took Jesse a minute to recognize the other cop, he worked out of the Larch street station but Jesse knew that he had seen him before.

_-Of course, it's Vince Danielson, Martin's nephew-_

Jesse had been sitting with Stacey and the other refugees; he stood up and walked over to Vince. Maybe he would have some idea what was wrong with Martin, who was standing alone in a corner, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"Vince? Hi Vince, I'm Jesse Franks; I think we've met before. I work with your uncle."

"Hi Jesse, I remember your face."

Jesse wasn't exactly sure how to explain what was troubling him.

"I'm worried about Marty; he's been acting weird. It's almost like he's in another world; he's practically...what's the word? ...catatonic. Take a look for yourself." he said, and pointed to where Martin was standing.

Officer Danielson frowned as he looked over at his uncle. "I didn't even see Uncle Martin when I came in, didn't know he worked nights." He said, "When did he start acting like this?"

"Just after listening to the fight at the barricade over the CB." Jesse explained, and then remembered what the old man had said to him. "When I asked him what was wrong, he told me that he couldn't stand the sound, and that his legs wouldn't move. I don't know what he was talking about. Do you?"

The cop had another look at Martin.

"Actually I think I do." He rubbed his bald spot. "My Dad told me once that Uncle Martin had been in the Korean War, and that he got sent home with a Section Eight."

"Section Eight? What's that?"

"It's when you go crazy, a dishonourable discharge." Vince pointed one finger at his temple and made small circles. "Dad said that when he got home, he went the whole summer without leaving the house once. Grandpa and Grandma were going to send him to the county nuthatch, but then he started getting better. He's still a bit of an oddball though. Maybe hearing the gunfight brought back some bad memories and pushed him off the edge."

It made sense. Jesse knew that Martin had fought in Korea, and would admit that the sixty-four year old bachelor had his odd tendencies, but never would he have imagined that his friend and co-worker had been mentally fragile most of his adult life.

One question formed in Jesse's mind. If it took Martin an entire summer to recover back in the fifties, how long would it take for him to snap out of it now? How would the old man survive if anything should happen, if the zombies broke through?

"What should we do?" Jesse asked.

Vince thought about it for a moment. "I should have a talk with him. I don't think it'll do much good though."

_-That's reassuring-_

Vince walked over to his uncle. A few words where exchanged, then Jesse heard Martin's voice raise to a rough shout. The old man then stormed away, headed for the East wing doors. Vince walked back over to Jesse, looking annoyed.

"Apparently Uncle Martin doesn't feel like talking right now, I figure if that's how he wants to act, let him, I've got more important things to worry about right now anyways.

It seemed that was all the help that Vince was ready to offer. He had turned his back on Jesse, resuming a conversation with Lou.

_- You prick. -_

Feeling defeated, Jesse walked back over to Stacey. She looked up at him, and despite all the unspeakable things that had happened that evening, attempted a smile.

"Hey there, Big Brother. Is your friend going to be okay?"

She managed to brighten his mood with a single sentence. Stacey and Owen had started calling him Big Brother since he and Susan became engaged, and he really loved it.

"No," He shook his head. "There's nothing I can do about it either."

"Poor guy, he looked pretty shaken up."

Jesse was suddenly taken away from his worries; there had been a heavy thump directly behind him, and a woman screamed. Jesse turned and saw the fat man with a birth mark sprawled on the floor. Several officers where already running over.

"He just fell over." the woman next to him blurted out, "His eyes rolled back and he fell down! What's wrong with him? Murray, wake up!"

Realizing this woman was the man's wife, Jesse bent down to take a pulse, trying to remember the first aid training from lifeguard courses taken nearly a decade earlier.

_-Go for the carotid artery, it will have the strongest pulse. Nothing. Check the breathing... Shit, nothing at all. -_

The man, Murray, was dead, and his wife had started to weep; Marv Branagh did his best to comfort the woman and led her to the other side of the room. A group of cops were now standing over Jesse and the corpse.

"What the hell's happening over here?" Detective Allen asked.

Jesse wasn't a paramedic. He had no idea what had killed the man, who was uninjured save for a shallow bite, nothing more than a scratch on the top of his right hand, most likely the result from a close encounter with one of the cannibals outside.

"No idea." Jesse said. "He just dropped dead, heart attack, maybe."

"Shitty." Allen bent and checked for a pulse as well. " Well, we'd better take him to the morgue." Allen turned. "Shaun! You've got the keys right? Give Franks a hand taking this guy down. You mind, Jesse?"

Of course Jesse minded, but he agreed anyway.

Shaun Kelly walked over. "Feet or hands?"

Jesse shook his head. "Huh?"

Kelly waved down at Murray's corpse

"Oh." Jesse swallowed. "Hands, I guess." He turned to Stacey "I'll be back in a minute."

"Actually, if it's okay I'll tag along and hold doors open for you guys." She said.

"Fine by me." Jesse said, it seemed like an odd request, but he dismissed it.

He grabbed the man and with a heave, lifted him up.

Jesse found it very disturbing to be holding a dead man's hands, and wished that they had a stretcher. The trip downstairs normally took under five minutes, but now seemed to take an eternity, and all the while the man's skin grew cooler, less like flesh, more like a rubber glove.

Shaun Kelly opened the door to the morgue, and instantly stumbled back, tripping over and falling on Murray's corpse. Stacey screamed in at least three separate octaves. Alarmed, Jesse's eyes darted towards the open door and then he was frozen in place.

_No! It can't be! He's dead! ... HE'S DEAD! -_

Officer Steve Visser was staggering through the entranceway and yet he was dead. His shattered abdomen had spilled its intestines onto the floor. They were dragging behind him; he was _stepping _on them.

_-Zombie! Steve's turned into a zombie! -_

Jesse couldn't tear his gaze away from the creature's mindless face. Before he could act the zombie had fallen on Detective Kelly, tearing a large chunk out of his shoulder. Kelly screamed and flailed, trying to simultaneously beat the creature and grab for the gun in his hip holster. Unfazed, Visser lunged down clamping his jaws on the detective's throat, and there was a grisly snapping sound as teeth dug into flesh. Shaun had stopped screaming but his feet drummed on the floor frantically, and Jesse watched agape as the former cop wrenched out Kelly's jugular in a cascade of blood so dark it looked black.

_-Move! Do something-_

Jesse didn't think, he just acted. Terrified, screaming a wordless howl, he charged the zombie and shoulder checked it. The creature staggered through the doorway and fell backwards over a gurney. Before it could get back up, Stacey had leapt over the two dead men and slammed the door shut.

Trembling and numb with shock, Jesse looked down at Detective Kelly, who was now very dead, lying in a growing pool of his own blood. One fact was now very clear; whatever turned a person into a zombie was apparently contagious. Those creatures had killed Steve Visser, and he had now turned into one of them.

Jesse had to wonder, did a person have to be killed by a zombie to become infected, or could scratches and bites alone transmit it? Worse yet, what if this "disease" was communicable while airborne, and he had become infected by simply coming in close contact with Visser?

-_Then you'll die, along with everyone else -_

Stacey gently squeezed his forearm, bringing him back to reality, her hand was trembling.

"Are you okay Jesse?" Her voice was feather soft. "Did that thing hurt you?"

Jesse gave himself the once over, he was ready to have a heart attack, but uninjured.

"Yeah," he mumbled "I'm okay."

Stacey tiptoed over to the morgue's door; the zombie somehow sensed her presence and began ramming itself against it, moaning hungrily. She took a few steps back and turned to him.

"Jesse, how did one of those things get in the station?"

"We put him there. Except when he went in, he was dead. The zombies had attacked him and he bled to death..." He trailed off.

Stacey was a smart girl and put together what had happened in a few seconds.

"What you're saying is that if a person gets killed by a zombie, they turn into one?" She frowned.

"Apparently that's how it works. Just like in the movies."

"Oh Jeez!" she whispered. "Do you think the others know about this?"

There was a rustling sound at their feet. One of the dead men, Murray, was moving. Jesse took a step back. There was no way that this man had simply passed out, he had taken a pulse and found nothing. Despite his conviction, he watched as the reanimated man slowly got to his feet, knees wobbling unsteadily, head hung down. Stacey started forward; obviously wanting to help him, but Jesse grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back.

"No Stacey," he said, without taking his eyes off Murray. "This isn't right. He's..."

The man interrupted him, making a choked gurgling sound. He began to shamble toward them.

"Oh Shit!" Jesse hissed through clenched teeth.

He had caught a glimpse of Murray's face and saw eyes that had already glazed over, looking like frosted marbles.

"Run!" Stacey shouted.

They both dashed down the hallway. Jesse looked over his shoulder and saw that the zombie was giving a slow motion pursuit, ambling along at an octogenarian's pace.

_-I guess that getting bitten by a zombie is enough to infect you - _

"We've got to tell someone what's happened," Jesse shouted as the two ran back to the lobby. "Tell them that there's zombies down here."

Stacey didn't answer, if the attack downstairs had rattled her in any way, she wasn't showing it. She wore a look of grim determination as she ran, breathing with the trained evenness of a long distance runner.

Jesse was doing his best to keep up with her, going over in his mind what he should say once they reached the others.

All heads turned towards them as they burst through the double doors into the main room. Jesse staggered forward, badly out of breath. Chief Irons was back, and he called out.

"Franks, where's Detective Kelly, was he not with you?"

"He's dead," Jesse answered, sucking in large gulps of air. "A zombie got him."

The room was full of hushed whispering as he finished his sentence. Tony DaSilva and Fernando crossed themselves in near perfect synchronisation.

"What?" he asked, his voice sharp. "What do you mean _a zombie_, they couldn't have broken through."

Jesse took a few steps forward, well aware that he commanded the entire room's attention.

"They haven't broken through." He took a deep breath, then went on, "Steve Visser turned into a zombie... he was locked in the morgue... we opened the door and he got Shaun."

Irons began to walk toward the two of them, "Mancini, Ford, Branagh, go check it out."

The three men raced for the door, weapons ready, jaws set, ready to kill and destroy whatever it was those men had turned into.

Irons was now standing three feet in front of Jesse. And although the Chief spoke to Jesse, he was looking past him, to something over Jesse's left shoulder.

"Let me see if I understand all of this." His eyes slowly crept up and down "Officer Visser was slain, and is now one of those creatures?"

"That's the way it looks, boss." Jesse answered "Also a man had died in the station..."

"Yes yes, I know that." Irons interrupted. His eyes continued to crawl up... down... up.

Jesse continued. "He was bitten by a zombie, and then he dropped dead."

"And...?" Irons asked. Down...up...danced his eyes.

Jesse glanced over to his left. Stacey had sidled halfway behind him, her arms were crossed over her breasts and she looked very uncomfortable. Irons had been checking her out.

Jesse wanted to hit him, wanted to gouge his eyes out.

_-You've got a crisis on your hands and you can't keep your dick in your pants? -_

"When a zombie bites a person, they TURN INTO ONE!" Jesse shouted. Incensed by the Chief.

He jerked a thumb over to where the injured were being treated.

"Those people over there? They're probably all infected." He continued "Do you see my point now, you asshole? Or are you too busy trying to eye-rape my _fucking _sister?"

Brian Irons' pudgy cheeks turned an impossibly dark red; his eyes narrowed to little slits. Jesse noticed that a vein at the Chief's temple had swollen to twice it's size, and if looks could kill, no doubt he would be twitching on the floor, bleeding from his eyes and ears.

Jesse had his fists clenched, his narrow chest puffed out. The incident downstairs seemed to have provoked his fight or flight instincts, and at the moment he felt like fighting.

Shame that it was Chief Irons who had the pistol.

The room was eerily quiet, like a showdown in one of Sergio Leone's westerns. At last, the silence was broken by the muffled sound of gunshots in the station. The officers were putting an end to Murray and Visser.

"Detective Allen!" Irons called out, spittle flew from his lips.

The detective ran over to Chief Irons.

Irons addressed Allen, but kept his smouldering gaze squarely on Jesse. Although he spoke quietly, just above a whisper, Jesse could hear quivering rage in the overweight man's voice.

"Allen, I want you to keep all of the wounded together, get a few men to keep an eye on them. If anyone shows signs of infection, shoot them at once. Take the corpses outside."

It took the detective a moment to process that he had just been appointed the title of executioner. He gave a single solemn nod and set about his task. The Chief gave Jesse one last angry glare, then walked briskly away.

Jesse had surprised himself. Irons was not one to mess with, but he definitely deserved it. Chief Irons had done a bad job handling the situation, and seemed to be more interested in Stacey's cup size than finding a way out of it, so why did Jesse regret bawling him out?

He took a look around the expansive room. It had been a tense situation to begin with, and Jesse's outburst aggravated it further. The injured people Jesse had referred to looked like nervous livestock ready to stampede.

_-You just told twenty people that they're infected with this zombie disease. Of course they're scared-_

Nagging guilt, Jesse took his eyes away from the doom-struck faces, looked over to Stacey.

"Your boss is a creep, Jesse." she said quietly.

"No shit," He popped a cigarette into his mouth. "Let's go sit down."

They sat down by the east wall, waiting for rescue, a plan, anything.

Two hours later, twenty bodies were piled like cordwood outside the main doors.


	6. The Siege

**AN Chapter updated Oct 25 2010**

**September 27 1998 1:15 AM- The Siege**

Shortly after the last of the wounded, Police Officer Dave Harvey, began to show signs of infection and was killed, the civilians were moved to the underground parking garage.

The survivors had been privy to a crash course in the different stages of the disease, now referred to as 'the zombie sickness'. The symptoms seemed to follow the same progression.

The infected person would complain of an itching sensation around the disease's point of entry. (The disease seemed to be blood borne, transmitted by a bite or scratch.)

The itching would then worsen. The person would scratch compulsively, and the skin around the wound became inflamed.

The person would develop a high fever, and their skin became increasingly pale. Then either the fever would and the person would fall into violent dementia, or sometimes they would seemingly keel over dead, as Murray had done.

The last stage always ended with the infected person turning undead, either by mentally degrading to a mindlessly violent state, or in the case of the victims who dropped dead, by a kind of reanimation.

The only thing that differed from person to person was the time that it took for the sickness to spread; it appeared to vary between ten minutes to a few hours. Stacey figured it had something to do with the person's metabolism, or maybe where the point of infection was located.

As Jesse shuffled downstairs along with the others, he let his mind wander, slip back a half hour earlier. A man about the same age as him had begun to feverishly scratch at a bite on his forearm.

Vince Danielson noticed and called out "Hey; this guy's starting to turn."

The man's eyes widened, he pleaded, insisting that he was fine; all the while he itched the inflamed skin around the bite, begging, crying. He was led outside by two officers, sobbing, and yet still scratching at the wound. They took him around the corner, out of sight, then BANG! and the two cops walked back inside.

_-What are you thinking about it for? It's not going to bring anyone back so drop it-_

Jesse sighed. He was again drawn to the image of the man, pleading for his life. The cops really had no choice but to kill him, for as callous as it was, the reality of the situation stated that it was easier to kill an infected while they were still human then when they had turned.

They were better off dead anyhow, Jesse couldn't imagine what it would be like to be led to your death, but given the choice between that and slowly degenerating into a mindless cannibal, he'd choose a swift death.

_-Or so you say now, we'll see what happens when you're the one who's infected. God I'm tired!-_

The effects of fatigue had fully set in. He had been awake for just under twenty hours, the adrenaline, tension, and nicotine had kept him going up until that point. An hour's worth of sitting on cold marble floor had given his body a chance to relax, and although his mind was fairly reeling with the evening's nightmarish occurrences, he had begun to effectively block out the bedlam outside. It could be likened to the way a person who lives by an airport will in time no longer be bothered by the deafening roar of jet engines.

Trudging past the morgue's door, he saw a good number of pockmarks in the cement walls, concrete shards crunched under his feet, and someone had put a tarp over a part of the floor, almost covering up the bloodstain underneath. The garage however, was untouched from the destruction and chaos outside. It was quiet too; most of the sounds from outside were very muffled. The civilians sat down where they could: inside cars, on hoods. The only place avoided was the floor; the garage was always a few degrees cooler than the rest of the station, and the cement floor always very cold.

The Fury Jesse had been working on roughly three centuries ago was unoccupied. He crawled into the front; Stacey stretched out on the blue vinyl back seat.

"It smells funny back here, but it's comfy." She yawned.

"Yeah, the mice got at this one pretty bad. These seats are pretty flat, we'll have a tough time catching any shuteye in here."

Despite Jesse's doubts to the contrary, a half-hour later, both were fast asleep as nervous cops milled about in the half dark.

* * *

Jesse woke a few hours later with a kink in the neck. He had been sleeping with his head on the dashboard, probably not the best idea.

Wincing, he looked at his watch.

_-3am. It's not any quieter outside either-_

His legs ached slightly as he slid out of the cruiser and stretched. He blinked the sleep away and cracked the kink out f his neck, Several people had congregated around the mechanic's toolboxes, and a bald man with tiny round glasses was fiddling with Kevin's radio.

Leaving Stacey, who was snoring gently, he quickly walked over.

"There's nothing on FM." Baldy stated.

"Turn it back, slowly," a woman in a stylish suit commanded. "I swear I heard something."

Baldy complied.

"There," Ben Bertolucci said, "Listen to that."

What they were hearing was perfect silence, no static. A moment later, a rumbling explosion south of the precinct could also be heard over the radio.

"It's 97.5. That rock station," Baldy announced "They must have left the mike on."

"Try it on AM." the woman ordered.

Once again, Baldy did what he was told. After a few turns a signal faded in through the static: an old cowboy ballad, sounding as if it was being broadcast a million miles away.

"It's probably that station out of Pendleton." Jesse suggested. "It's about the only thing that radio will pick up down here on AM."

"That means that they don't know about us yet?"

"Or the station is automatically programmed at night," countered Bertolucci.

The song ended, and the DJ cut in, speaking in the sleepily mellow tone it seemed every late night DJ used.

**"This is KJRN, classic country all through the night. That was Marty Robbins' "They're Hanging Me Tonight." Stay tuned because after the break we've got Johnny Cash, Charlie Pride and the Oak Ridge Boys."**

The DJ cut to an ad for an upstate Chevrolet dealership, and Baldy went to turn the radio off.

"Leave it on," Suit woman said.

"Yeah," Bertolucci agreed, and then plopped into a chair. "The man said he's gonna play some Johnny Cash."

_-Okay, good. Whatever is going on here isn't happening everywhere -_

Jesse stepped past the trio, to his toolbox and rummaged through the drawer he kept his personal things, coming out with a handful of loose change. Years of smoking had given him a constant dry throat, and he was dying for a drink.

He was plugging quarters and nickels into the pop machine in the hallway outside the garage when he stopped suddenly.

For a brief period of his childhood, Jesse had been a soccer fanatic, and spent many summer evenings kicking his soccer ball against their home's metal garage door. There was a very similar sound to that coming from the precinct's main floor, except it sounded as if every member of a soccer team was kicking balls against an enormous garage door.

Curious, Jesse stuffed the two 7-Ups into his pockets and went upstairs to investigate.

Dave Ford stood at the top of the stairs with his back to Jesse. The noise was actually almost unbearably loud upstairs, and Jesse could see the metal shutters along the hallway banging violently.

"Dave?" Jesse tapped him on the shoulder.

The small man tensed as if an electric current had been passed through him.

"Jesus!" Dave screamed, and wheeled around with his gun pointed out. He staggered back, tripping over a mop bucket.

The muzzle of Officer Ford's Mossberg passed directly through Jesse's line of sight. From his perspective the gun had a bore the size of softball. With his insides crammed up against his Adam's apple, Jesse screamed and leapt out of the line of fire.

"Ford?" a voice boomed from around the corner.

"What's wrong?' another shouted.

Two officers stormed into the hallway, guns out and pointed at him. Instinctively Jesse shot his arms up, hoping to avoid aeration with nine millimetre shells.

"Don't shoot!" he screamed, sheepish.

They lowered their weapons and glanced down at Dave, who was jittering the big shotgun at Jesse.

_-Smooth one dummy! -_

"What're you doing up here?" one cop, Vince Danielson demanded, "trying to kill yourself?"

"Jeez guy," Dave groaned. "I almost blasted your head off."

Officer Ford was comically squirrelly-eyed, and as Jesse helped him to his feet, he could smell alcohol fumes coming off him in waves. It was no secret that Dave Ford was an alcoholic, although he seemed to have kept all of his drinking after hours until this point. Jesse didn't fault him at all for his lapse, under the conditions.

"Who is this guy?" asked the other officer, a stranger from Larch Street.

"He's our mechanic." Ford answered. "Go back downstairs; it's not safe up here."

Jesse was unwavering. "They're already trying to get in?"

"It sure seems like it. Pickings might be getting slim for them out in the streets," The other cop holstered his pistol. "Say, you're a mechanic right? How much you know about these shutters?"

"I'm the one who closed them. What do you want to know?"

"Do you think they'll hold?" he asked.

Jesse stepped forward, out of Officer Ford's cloud of whiskey breath. The shutters were raining a constant cloud of dust from the violent pounding, but the tracks were set between two thick slabs of solid walnut. As Jesse edged closer, the panel directly in front of him rippled with a very heavy impact, a muffled shout of inarticulate rage followed closely. Jesse jerked his head away, suddenly aware that a thin sheet of metal separated himself from the dirty teeth of one of those infected freaks.

"I'm no carpenter, but they seem strong, they should work." Jesse concluded, backing away from the twitching metal.

"That's good" the other cop said, "I'm not one hundred percent on the layout, but I'm pretty sure this bank of windows opens up on the street."

"Yeah, it does."

"You'd better get back downstairs with the others." Vince Danielson pointed at him. "Irons wants all the civvies in one place."

"Besides, you don't want to be here if these things get in." added Ford.

Jesse agreed that he didn't want to be anywhere near those zombie things. He shuddered and turned back to the stairs.

As Jesse was making his way back to the Fury he had camped out in, he passed Lou Mancini and Marvin Branagh. They seemed to be having some sort of heated discussion. Marvin's face was pinched and angry and Mancini was jabbing a thick finger in the black cop's face.

"Open your eyes Marv! Umbrella set this town up." He hissed, not quite quietly enough.

_-Umbrella? -_

Jesse walked on, and then ducked behind a squad car on a hoist. He slid along a shadowed wall near enough to pick up on the argument. He wasn't one to eavesdrop, but his mother had worked for Umbrella; half the city worked for Umbrella.

"Do you really believe that?" Marvin whispered.

"You heard Redfield and the others. They said zombies attacked them by the Spencer mansion."

"Yeah, I heard them all right."

"So you think all this is a coincidence then?"

"I don't think Umbrella was responsible, if that's what you're trying to get at."

"Come on! We both saw the report on all those Umbrella trucks heading up the old mine roads around Victory Lake. Then one morning the Spencer mansion, owned by Umbrella, suddenly explodes like it was packed full of TNT."

"Reports said that the STARS helicopter crashed into it and..."

Mancini would not be interrupted. "And three months later, these…zombies pop up _where_? All around the Umbrella chemical plant."

"Umbrella has nothing to do with this!" Branagh nearly shouted, and shoved Mancini back "My _wife_, has nothing to do with this. My _brother _has nothing to do with this!"

Branagh seemed to have had enough chitchat, and he spun on his heels, beating a quick retreat, leaving Mancini fuming.

Jesse couldn't help but agree with Marv. Recent events, however, did give the STARS Team's outlandish claim, that Umbrella Inc. had some secret monster factory out in the woods, a certain amount of validity.

Creeping back to his squad car, Jesse pondered the plausibility of Umbrella being behind this nightmare.

_-No way, maybe there was some sort of accident. But this kind of thing wouldn't happen on purpose-_

From Raccoon City's incorporation as a mining boomtown at the turn of the century, to its transformation in the late sixties into a manufacturing and pharmaceutical capital, it has always been a company town. Like most company towns, its residents were fiercely loyal and protective of their only true provider: the company. Umbrella had spared Raccoon City a slow death when the mines had closed their doors for good. Umbrella poured a ton of money back into the community. It gave Mom and Dad jobs. They sponsored nearly every event in town. Most citizens would ardently defend Umbrella's innocence even if rock solid evidence to the contrary were laid out in front of them. The saying, "you don't bite the hand that feeds you" held strong in a place like Raccoon City.

Jesse placed the two cans of 7-Up on the dash and stretched out as best he could inside the car. Letting his thoughts spiral away from his conscious mind, he drifted back to sleep. Through the open car window, Merle Haggart lamented a lost love through the static on Kevin's radio: the loneliest music on Earth for the strangest night of his life.

* * *

Jesse couldn't have been asleep for more that a half-hour before the lights went out and people started screaming. Upstairs, two very faint gunshots were heard. He jerked upright. Aside from the yellow emergency lights at the exits, the garage was ink black. Behind him Stacey's head popped up; he turned on the dome light.

"What's going on?" she asked, squinting at him.

"The power went out; the generator should cut in right away."

In and amongst the shadows, he could see figures darting back and forth. It was impossible to tell who they were, though it could be assumed that the ones holding guns were cops.

"What should we do?" Stacey asked.

"Let's lie low until the power cuts back in."

Moments later, gunfire erupted in the garage. Jesse swivelled his head sideways; a zombie was collapsing in the hallway leading upstairs. Several more were directly behind it.

"The shutters!"

"What?" Stacey asked. Her hand was clamped on his shoulder.

_-Run! -_

"Never mind, follow me! We have to get somewhere safe." he shouted, swung the car door open and turned on the headlights.

Ahead of them, the squad car lifted up on a ramp hoist was bathed in harsh white light.

"Climb up on that car." he screamed to her.

Looking over his shoulder as he ran, Jesse saw a half dozen zombies writhing in the gunfire, doggedly, mindlessly trying to gain ground.

_-Why isn't that generator running? -_

Stacey made it to the car first, athletically hoisting herself onto the ramp and climbing up to the car's roof. Her toned leg muscles rippled and flexed as they pushed her upward. Jesse scrabbled up a moment later, crouching low on the other side of the light bar. They were about ten feet in the air, safely out of a zombie's reach.

"They keep coming!" Stacey yelled over the din.

About twenty of the undead had made it into the main garage and began to fan out around the group of officers. Several other cars had their headlights turned on, and cast nightmare-long shadows.

Turning around, Jesse saw most of the civilians pressed against the far wall. The only other exit from the garage, leading into the holding cells and dog kennels was blocked by the dead paddy wagon.

_- We're trapped! -_

Jesse watched as the zombies effectively flanked the defending police guns, which were inaccurate in the dark, and skirted around to the civilians. He finally clamped his eyes shut after watching a middle aged woman, Murray's wife, get dragged screaming into the shadows by two heavyset male zombies, one in an RPD uniform.

_-I'm going to die, I'm going to die! They're going to kill the cops and I'll be stuck up here-_

Two very long minutes later, the lights blazed on. Jesse still refused to open his eyes. It would be suicide to move, and there was nothing happening that he would ever want to see. Strangely, Kevin's radio was playing George Jones at full volume, the music transforming the scene into the worst bar room brawl in the history of mankind.

Jesse knew then and there that country music would forever be ruined for him.

"Jesse, Look! The hallway!" Stacey was tugging at his elbow; she had tears streaming down her flushed face.

He forced his eyes open and saw that not only did the hallway seem clear, but also most of the carnage was happening along the far wall. They had a safe escape route, aside from two zombies with shattered spines who were slowly dragging themselves to the freshly killed.

The lights flickered off momentarily, then back on at half power. George Jones crackled into a fuzzy garbled racket.

"It's now or never." His voice was breathless.

"What?"

"Come on!" Jesse shouted. "Follow me."

Jesse jumped, his work boots offered no cushion. He was running before his arches had the chance to protest. They were halfway upstairs when the power cut out again. Further up he could hear the _clink-clink-clink _as the shutters retracted back to open.

_-Oh hell! They probably open when power is cut for fire safety. Now what smart guy? -_

The hallway was partially lit by jaundice yellow emergency lighting, Jesse swivelled his head around, noting the door leading to the back parking lot at the other end. Evenly spaced, were the entrances to the morgue, weapons storage, the parking garage and the boiler room.

_-Boiler room. The genny is in there! -_

"We'll hide in the furnace room." He grabbed Stacey's elbow and led her to the right door.

It was almost pitch black inside the boiler room, and warm enough to cause Jesse to sweat almost instantly. It was also considerably quieter inside. Much quieter than one might expect if a diesel engine had been running. Jesse locked the door behind him and fished out his lighter.

The generator sat idle in the back corner of the room, and even with the puny bit of light Jesse's Bic lighter gave off it was easy to tell what was wrong with it.

The generator's control panel was bashed into a twisted mess of sheet metal and wiring, likely with the gooseneck crowbar that lay at their feet.

"Wow, someone got mad!" Stacey kicked at the crowbar. "Can you fix it?"

Jesse peered at the generator; his thumb was starting to cook under the flame. He and Kevin had serviced it a few times, and though Jesse had no interest in diesel engines, the other mechanic had given him a pretty good idea how it worked.

The generator had a mechanically governed engine, meaning it needed very few electrical inputs in order to run.

Jesse began assessing the damage, and reached into the vast file of his mechanical knowledge referred to as 'bush fixing'

"Well, that panel basically senses when the electricity is shut off. It cuts the connection to the outside hydro lines, then it sends twelve volts from the battery to the starter and fuel solenoid, and then the engine starts."

Stacey stared at him with her sparse eyebrows furrowed. "So...we can fix it?"

"We can try." Jesse answered. "Hold my light, okay?"

Jesse groped his way to the power panel, and pulled the levers for the main circuit breakers, hopefully isolating the precinct from Raccoon City's damaged power grid. He then borrowed a length of wire from the control panel; the fuel solenoid hummed as he wired it directly to the battery, a good sign.

Jesse picked up the gooseneck, ordered Stacey to cross her fingers, and jammed the crowbar into the starter motor, shorting the two contacts together.

The big Cummins diesel whirred over and chugged to life like an oily giant waking from a year's sleep. Slowly, the lights ramped back up to full intensity.

Jesse breathed a sigh of relief.

"Nice work Big Brother." Jesse noticed that Stacey had Susan's grin, thin lipped with even white teeth. He took back his lighter and lit a cigarette with it.

"Yeah," Jesse drew on his smoke; a Marlboro never tasted so good. "At least they have a chance now."

"Who do you think broke that thing anyway?" Stacey fiddled with the mangled electrical panel.

It was a good question. The zombie things didn't seem to be in the sabotage business.

"A real asshole." Jesse coughed, and took another drag.

It took about ten minutes before the last gunshots were heard, and they waited an extra five before venturing a look.

"I hear voices." Stacey half whispered.

They walked back into the garage very slowly with their hands above their heads, making sure to announce their presence as well. There was a good chance the surviving cops were in a shoot first type of mood.

The garage had turned into a charnel house; it was nearly impossible to breathe in the stench of cordite. Jesse was depressed to see that nearly all the unarmed civilians were either dead or wounded. And though most of the cops made it through unhurt, perhaps a more difficult prey to the zombies than the easy pickings of civilian meat, Jesse didn't see the three from upstairs.

Sergeant Carlson seemed to be in charge so Jesse walked over to him, informing him that the generator was powering the precinct, and that it had been intentionally damaged.

"Thanks for the info, but we've got bigger things to worry about." His eyes were all cornea and pupil. "How about you help taking these bodies into the morgue?"

* * *

By the time the garage had been cleaned, up the decision had been made to relocate upstairs, seeing as how the group was considerably smaller now. Other then cops there were six uninjured, and ten injured, and Jesse had no doubts that those ten would be dead within the hour.

Five officers took the injured upstairs first; they were to be kept separate from the others. Jesse couldn't help but stare as they were shepherded past. Baldy was so pale that he already looked dead, and Tony DaSilva was slowly thumbing rosary beads with bleeding hands. He had just started his fourth decade as he ambled past, smiling sadly as he muttered Hail Marys in Portuguese.

The remainder of the group ended up in the briefing room on the first floor. The spent adrenaline caught up to him nearly instantly and he fell into a coma-like sleep. Outside, the sun began to break the horizon. They had survived their first night in the new Raccoon City.


	7. Day Trip

**September 27 1998 12:45 PM- Day Trip**

Asbestos tile had never been Jesse's first choice for a bed, but he managed to get five hours of fairly decent sleep regardless. He woke up disorientated and it took about ten seconds before the sleep fog dissipated and he recalled the situation they were in.

"I guess it wasn't a bad dream." he muttered, and was horrified by his severely bad breath.

Jesse stretched and yawned through a mouth that felt full of drywall paste. His skin crawled in his coveralls and his gut yearned for a hot breakfast, though it was doubtful that a hot shower and a plate of pancakes were scheduled in for him today. Yawning again, Jesse hawked, spat and fished out his smokes, surveying the room

Stacey was sitting with her back to him in a desk across the room with a young girl about twelve years old and Suit Woman. A few others dozed on the floor while Dave Ford, the only cop, kept guard, sitting cross legged on a table with the Mossberg on his lap.

"Morning." Jesse mumbled to Stacey.

"Afternoon, actually." she said, turning to him. "Jesse, this is Sherry, and this is Allison."

"Hello, Jesse." Sherry, the kid, frowned at him "Smoking causes lung cancer you know."

"Thanks for the advice." Jesse said forcing a bit of a smile. Owen would lecture him on the dangers of smoking as well. Normally he got a laugh out of it.

"Do you plan on quitting?" Sherry asked earnestly. "If you quit now, in ten years your lungs will be back to normal." She spoke with the unsettlingly adult tone child actors used in interviews.

_- Come on kid. Drop it -_

"Then this is my last one." Jesse responded "You sure know a lot about smoking."

Sherry smiled a bit, but it didn't make it up to her serious grey-blue eyes.

"My parents are scientists with Umbrella. They are trying to find a cure for cancer."

Suit Woman, Allison, excused herself and walked across the room.

"Good for them. My parents worked for Umbrella, too." Jesse sat in Suit Woman's chair.

"Where did all the cops go?" he asked, changing the subject.

"I'm not sure; they were gone when I woke up. It looks like they've got some sort of plan. They have been coming and going all the time."

"How did you sleep?"

"Not good." Stacey said and flashed Susan's thin lipped smile. Jesse hated it when she smiled like that. "I used you as a pillow. You're kind of bony."

Jesse assumed that Stacey must be putting on the chipper act for the sake of the little girl. No one in their right mind would be naturally this cheerful. He smiled along and rubbed his hands on his protruding ribcage.

"Let's see if we can do something about that. What does a guy have to eat around here?"

The girl, who was dressed like her parents wanted a boy, answered.

"They broke the locks on those two machines. The one has Five Alive and the other has Rice Crispie squares, that's almost breakfast food."

"Yum," Jesse said with mock enthusiasm, "How about bacon and eggs?"

"I think you'll have to settle for Pork Rinds and peanuts Big Bro."

Jesse crushed his cigarette out on the tip of his boot, flicked the butt over his shoulder and pushed himself upright.

"It's better than nothing I guess."

He ended up taking Sherry's advice, quickly devouring the sickly sweet cereal type bar and washing it down with a lukewarm Five Alive. Still hungry he grabbed a bag of cashews and was popping them into his mouth three at a time as he walked over to a large hand drawn map of the station. Allison, the suit woman was examining it; she turned her head up at him and brushed an errant lock of beauty salon auburn hair back in place.

"Hey Slim, have you got an extra smoke?" she asked as she bent forward, tracing a long finger with chipped nail polish along the paper.

"Are you sure you want one? The smoking police might object."

Jesse handed her a cigarette and his lighter. She turned and snatched them away eagerly, casting her puffy eyed gaze on Sherry.

"She's a nice kid, smart too. _And her parents are going to cure cancer._" Her last comment was laced with a sarcasm Jesse didn't fully understand. "Do you have kids?"

"Me? No." Jesse answered shaking cashew crumbs into his open mouth. "Gotta get married before I think about that kind of thing. Do you?"

Allison straightened and turned to face him, her severe features softened as she smiled.

"Two boys. Their father has them in Portland for the week."

"At least they're not here." Jesse said, and then asked, "What's the deal with the map?"

Allison took one puff on the Marlboro, then coughed and gagged. She threw it down and snuffed it with the tip of her high heeled shoe.

"Ack! _Now _I remember why I quit. How can you smoke those things? It looks like they're checking every room in this place; you should ask Red over there."

She discretely pointed at Dave Ford.

"Although he hasn't been very talkative, or polite."

"That sounds like Dave all right, I'm used to dealing with that guy."

Jesse tossed the empty cashew wrapper into a corner and walked over to the cop. Dave was never the squared away type, however today he could have been mistaken for one of the undead. His curly copper hair tufted out from under his crumpled forage cap like tendrils of smoke and his patrol shirt was soiled with dirt and dried blood. He gazed up at Jesse with soggy pink eyes.

"Hey Dave, what's going on here? Where is everybody? Did they get word out to the outside?"

Dave coughed and popped a Camel between his lips.

"Gimme your lighter, I'm no good at twenty questions."

Jesse handed it to him and was amazed that the alcohol on Ford's breath didn't ignite in a bright blue ball of fire when he lit up. He shifted the Mossberg on his lap, and stuffed the lighter into his pants pocket.

"I hope you understand," his voice slurred "As a police officer I have been sanctioned certain freedoms of search and seizure."

Jesse seethed, but maintained his composure.

"Keep it, but you're _going _to be answering one of my questions. What are you guys doing about this mess?"

"That's what we're doing." Ford pointed at the map with his Mossberg's cartoonishly long barrel.

"You're drawing a map." Jesse said flatly.

Dave drew deeply on the cigarette, his fingers were nicotine yellow.

"It's an operation map; we're checking every room in this place for ammo and stuff. Anderson and a few others are in the STARS room trying to fix the coms network; some jerk smashed it last night. Phones are still down, but they found some two ways that still work."

Dave reached behind and pulled out a Motorola walkie-talkie, waving it around. He took another drag and continued.

"We sent four guys out to try to make it to the Larch Street precinct, to see if their radio set is working and to check for survivors. They've got another six or seven hours of daylight to make it back. Last we heard from them was 'bout an hour ago. The whole Cider district is in flames, wind is out of the North so we're okay for now. I'm here to baby-sit you guys and take notes on the map when they call in."

_- Hey, at least it's a plan -_

"Were you upstairs when the zombies broke through last night? Did Vince and the other guy make it out with you?" Jesse asked.

"No," he drummed the desk with one hand. "They're both dead."

"Did you guys ever find Martin? He wasn't in the garage last night." Dave flicked his cigarette, papery ashes snowed to the floor.

"I told you I wasn't playing twenty questions, how about you sit down like a good boy. You'll find out more when I do."

Jesse complied reluctantly and retreated back to where Stacey and Sherry were sitting. The next few hours were torturously dull. He ended up grabbing a week's worth of old Raccoon Herald newspapers, and noticed Suit Woman, Allison Greaves, semi smiling headshot above the by-line on an editorial concerning the cleanup of mine tailings in the Arklay Mountains. He _knew _he had seen her before.

Halfway through the Tuesday crossword Dave's radio began jabbering madly. Dave listened intently, sighed deeply, then walked over to the map and started marking big red X's on certain rooms on the second floor. He noticed that he had an audience and announced, "Stay away from windows, Joe Gutierrez just got killed by a bunch of crows."

_-Jesus, how could I forget about those things? -_

Stacey shook her head slowly; she wore a Saint Christopher medallion on a chain that shifted with her neck muscles.

"We need a five letter word for _impersonating _that begins with A" She said quietly.

The hours crept by, Jesse and most of the others alternately napped on the floor and munched on junk food liberated from the snack machines. The civilians were confined to the briefing room, except to be escorted upstairs to use the washroom. Jesse would have never imagined the day he would consider taking a leak a respite from boredom, although he had also never imagined a day he when would have to worry about being eaten alive by a soccer mom.

Dave was fairly reliable in regards to relaying the progress of the police. The four "day trippers" sent to the Larch street precinct hadn't reported back for a few hours, though it was deemed possible that they were out of radio range. The door leading to Chief Iron's office was blocked off and impassable, a battering ram was brought up from the STARS office but proved ineffective. Jack Anderson had given up on trying to repair the radio net; several circuit boards had been broken to pieces with a claw hammer. The police were searching for the saboteur, though it was doubtful the perpetrator could be identified.

Jesse woke from his nap as Sergeant Carlson and Detective Allen trudged by him, stopping to converse with Dave. He propped himself up on his elbows and listened in, shushing Allison and Sherry.

"Do you know who had card keys to the weapons room?" Allen asked Ford.

"I know I don't have one. Have you asked Irons?" He replied.

"We still haven't found him yet." Neil Carlson said. "And we still can't get into the Admin. Wing. The door has some sort of metal reinforcement."

"We know Munroe had one, and you were chummy with him. Any idea where he kept it?" Allen interrupted.

Dave scratched his stubbly chin.

"Knowing that guy, he probably has it on him. You know how he was about responsibility and all that. He never made it back did he?"

Carlson and Allen shook their heads in unison.

"Well, I guess we're pretty much screwed on that front, too" Ford spat. "There's no way we'd bust down those armoury doors; they're solid steel. We'd need a torch."

_-Torch? -_

"Uh, guys?" Jesse exclaimed as he pushed himself to his feet.

"Yeah?"

"We've got a cutting torch in the basement that would blow through that lock, no problem."

Detective Allen grinned.

"Fantastic, I'll get a few guys together and we can head down there and crack that sucker open, Dave, hand me that walkie-talkie."

Jesse smiled slightly as he sat back down next to Stacey and Sherry. It felt good to be helpful. Besides he was not used to sitting still for long stretches at a time and was well on his way to stage one of cabin fever.

"You're not going to burn the place down are you?" Stacey teased.

Jesse was getting tired of her Pollyanna routine, but managed to twist his scowl into a lopsided grin. Twenty minutes later Marvin Branagh, Lou Mancini and Elliot Edward entered the room and promptly raided the vending machines.

"So we're taking Franks to the basement?" Lou asked as he guzzled an Orange Crush.

"That's right." Allen answered "Neil, you go along with them, _who knows _what could have gotten into that garage."

"While you're at it, be sure to check out the pressroom and the storage closet across from it. No one has been in there yet." Ford added as he examined the map.

As Jesse got up to leave, Stacey tugged at him.

"Be safe Big Brother."

She was looking at him with a finality that he didn't like at all. Jesse recalled his last conversation with Jim, and with a spontaneity that would have confused him in any other situation he wrapped his long arms around her. The briefing room was anything but warm, and Stacey was only dressed in a tank top and cut-off jean shorts, but it felt as if he was hugging a furnace.

"You too, be back in a bit."

He walked out of the room flanked by uniformed men with guns drawn. He could have been a death row inmate walking the last mile.

Jesse was given an unintentional tour of the East wing as the four cops patrolled though the station. They paused at the press room's entrance and warned Jesse to stand back. Sergeant Carlson unclipped a large key ring on his belt and slowly unlocked and opened the door. The other three men had their pistols out pointed into the semi dark of the empty room. Jesse was impressed that they were still alert and diligent despite being at war for over a day. Branagh flicked on his Mag light and cautiously entered.

"What the...WHO IS THAT?" He shouted quickly. As Carlson, Mancini and Edward stormed through the door. Jesse quickly jumped back; he slammed against a wall with his breath caught in his throat.

"GET YOUR HANDS UP!"

"Who the hell is that?" "Get your fucking hands up NOW!

"Neil, get the lights."

"Turn around, keep your hands in the air!"

"Shit.... It's that old mechanic. Vince's uncle."

_-Martin, he's alive! -_

. Someone found the lights; the pressroom glowed with warm incandescent light. Jesse caught his breath and ran in, relieved.

Martin stood shaking in the far corner of the room. Jesse had no idea how a person could age two decades in a single day, although the old electrician seemed to have found the secret.

"Stop pointing your damn gun at him!" Jesse growled at Lou "Martin, good to see you."

Martin's tired eyes crawled in their sockets, finally flashing some recognition at Jesse. Moving with languid measure he flopped into a folding chair and pulled out his cigarette pack with Parkinson's hands.

"You boys scared the bejesus outta me." Two decades was an understatement. Martin had turned into Methuselah.

"What are you doing here alone in the dark?" Lou demanded, still holding his MP-5 ready.

"Leave him alone." Jesse ordered as he pulled out his own pack of smokes. "Hey Martin, give me a light okay?"

Martin spent a half-minute fumbling with an old Zippo before Jesse gently took it out of his hands. He lit up, and held the lighter steady so Martin could do the same.

"He's going to have to come with us; he can't stay here alone."Carlson said calmly.

"I'm not going anywhere until I finish this smoke." Martin suddenly barked. Neil backed off, nodding.

He and Jesse finished their smokes in silence, Jesse would not know at the time, but it was the last cigarette he would ever have.

The six men were at the bottom of the basement's stairway when Elliot's walkie-talkie came alive with a fuzzy statacco voice. Martin turned to stone.

Male voice- **Oak Street...it's...Davies...**static**...ming in...**static**...the door!** Officer Edward jerked the two way up to his lean face.

Edward- **I didn't get that last part.**

Male voice-...**ACK DOOR!.......**gunfire**...... OPEN THE BACK DOOR! **

Edward- **Which back door?**

Male voice - **PARKING LOT...HURRY!**

The four cops sprinted ahead, Branagh yelled back at Jesse.

"Get somewhere safe! The furnace room!" He didn't wait for a reply before he rounded the corner.

Martin was still motionless, doing a very accurate impression of Lot's wife. Jesse grabbed the old electrician by both shoulders and shook him violently.

"Martin!"

Martin regained some lucidity and began to slowly shamble as Jesse yanked him along by the elbow. As Jesse jerked Martin into the boiler room, a long bust of gunfire rang down the hallway. He slammed the door behind him; the rumbling generator drowned out the noise.

"Are you going to be okay here?" He asked after a few moments.

Martin nodded solemnly.

"Yeah, at least it's warm in here."

"Vince told me about Korea."

Martin's ancient eyes were wet ice in the near dark, he nodded slowly.

"I've been hearing those guns for forty five years." he had the tone of a penitent in confession. "I'll die with them ringing in my ears."

He punctuated the sentence with a phlegmy sounding sob and turned away from Jesse. With unexpected speed he loped forward and scooped up the gooseneck crowbar Jesse had thrown to the floor earlier. He wheeled around, wielding the crowbar like a claymore.

"I'm not leaving this room." He was loud and bullish again, looking Jesse square in the eyes below his wild white eyebrows.

Jesse took a step back toward the door; instinctively he held his palms out.

"Okay."

"I'll kill anyone who tries to make me."

"Fine, we'll get you when help comes."

Martin shook his head sadly, still clutching the crowbar tightly.

"No one is going to come, Boy. You know that."

Jesse had no counter to that statement, and spent several quiet minutes attempting to come up with a single reason that would prove him wrong, before he could find one a series of sharp raps rang off the door.

"Open up!" A muffled voice filtered through.

"Keep the generator filled up then, there's jerry cans on that shelf." Jesse said finally.

"I know where they are."

Someone pounded on the door again.

"See you soon." Jesse knew that was a lie. He opened the door, coming nose to nose with a crimson faced Neil Carlson.

"Let's go, get Danielson."

"Leave him in there Neil; he's keeping the genny full."

Carlson sighed, further down the hallway Jesse could hear urgent voices.

"All right, we need to go."

Jesse followed the Sergeant back down the hallway, around a corner to the parking lot entrance. Officer Patrick Davies, one of the four cops sent to Larch Street lay on the floor taking shallow breaths though clenched teeth. His entire body trembled violently and he held both hands to a messy looking gouge on his left thigh, attempting to stave off the scarlet lake that spread around him. Marvin had taken off his belt and twisted it around his nightstick, fashioning a tourniquet. He wound it around Davies' leg, just below the crotch.

"I'll do it." Davies rasped, and grabbed the night stick "Don't get my blood on you."

Carlson and Lou took a step back.

"Where are the others?' Branagh asked, as he wiped his hands on his trousers.

"All dead, the city is insane. Don't try to go out there."

"Zombies got them?"

Davies shook his head, he was shivering.

"Something else, like a...a...nightmare".

Jesse felt a cold blade of fear slice him, suddenly he shivered as well. Patrick's eyes regained their focus.

"Bell and Hernandez are fixing the chopper." His words were running together. "Someone ripped the throttle out, but they're going to fix it and fly you out."

Lou goggled and bent forward, "How long will it take? " His voice was squeaky and excited.

Davies shook his head; his eyes were pressed into black slits.

"Don't know, they said maybe tomorrow morning. There's crows that keep trying to get at them."

Branagh nodded slowly, "Yeah, we know about _those _things."

"You need to hold on here," Pat Davies' implored, "They'll come, it's your only chance."

"We'll hold on just fine." Branagh reassured "Come on Pat; let's get you upstairs with the others."

"I'm dead meat and you know it." His teeth chattered.

"It's still too early to tell yet. We've stopped your bleeding."

"It itches.... like nothing you'll ever feel."

Officer Davies jerked sideways; before anyone could react he had his pistol free of his holster.

"Oh!..." Carlson started.

Pat twisted his head away and jabbed the muzzle up to his temple; the report was nowhere near as loud as Jesse imagined it would be, the heavy wet slap on the parking lot door seemed louder. Davies' feet kicked once, and then all was silent in the hallway.

"..._Shit_." Neil finished.

. Edward turned away in disgust, cursing quietly. He walked down the hall alone, rested his head on the cinder block wall and began to softly weep. Embarrassed, Jesse looked away. After a minute of shocked silence Mancini crouched over Davies' remains and peered closely at the large wound on his leg.

"It's right down to the bone." He stated, poking the torn flesh with a mechanical pencil. "Three separate cuts, like a big cat scratch."

"That's one hell of a cat." Marvin commented, "Check if he has any extra ammo."

Lou rummaged through the pouches of his service belt, pulled out a fresh magazine and tossed it to Marv.

"I'm leaving the one in his gun, it's covered in blood." Lou stood up and spun toward them "We just have to last until tomorrow and then we're out of here."

"If they can fix the helicopter." Sergeant Carlson said in rebuttal.

"If nothing gets them first." Branagh added, "We still need to plan an escape in case they don't show up."

"They'll be here." Mancini insisted.

Elliot Edward rejoined the group.

"We should do something with the body."

"I'm not touching him if he's infected." Lou protested "I tossed away my gloves last night."

"We've got welding gloves in the garage." Jesse offered.

"That will work." Neil decided, "We can put him in the cooler with the others after we get the weapons room open. Elliot,, radio the guys upstairs and tell them what's going on."

Edward hailed the police on the main floor but received no reply. Jesse felt the stabs of fear return, twisting his stomach and bringing fresh moisture to his chest and armpits.

_-Why aren't they answering? -_

There was still no response after three additional attempts to hail Officer Ford. It was quickly decided that as long as the garage was free of danger, Mancini, Sergeant Carlson and Branagh would return to the briefing room to investigate. Edward and Jesse would keep the radio and stay in the basement to open the armoury. Mancini swung the garage door open and swept a wide arc with his burp gun. Carefully they headed in.

"Looks clear." Lou announced.

"We'll meet you two back in the operation room." Carlson swallowed heavily; his protruding Adam's apple bobbed. "Let's go."

Jesse was sweating profusely despite the chilly temperature, and he very badly wanted a cigarette. He quickly scanned the room for the cutting torch but it was becoming difficult to concentrate on the task at hand. Had the zombies broken in? Were the others all dead? He recalled the expression Stacey's broad face had as he left. Had he imagined the unhappy resignation? The insincere "see you soon" tone that she used?

Jesse shook the meddlesome thoughts away; he had a job to do before he could find out anything. He walked over to the oxyacetylene torch propped next to Martin's toolbox and tilted it back onto its wheels. He kept an ear cocked, ready to pick up the faint sound of gunfire upstairs as he pushed the tanks to the weapons room door.

_- Something is wrong up there. -_

Jesse sparked the torch on, balanced the oxygen for a neutral flame and got to cutting. His guts wrenched tighter and sweat dripped off his nose onto the shaded visor as the cutting torch blasted gobs of molten slag out of the heavy door. Stainless steel was very difficult to cut with a torch and it was taking an agonizingly long time. The constant hiss and pop of the flame drowned out other ambient noise, except for Edward's increasingly desperate attempts to get a reply on the two-way.

_- Come on Come on! -_

Jesse let out a big relieved breath as the lock gave way ten minutes and seven lifetimes later. Quickly snuffing the flame, Jesse listened again for any noise upstairs, still nothing. Officer Edward brushed by him and flicked on the lights.

The weapons room had been fairly picked over, although Elliot did find a few boxes of nine millimetre ammo that would work with the pistols and Lou's MP-5. Jesse put the torch to work again on a padlocked olive drab gun locker; he allowed himself a moment of triumph after yanking the door open. A shiny black Remington 1100 sat in a ballistic foam cradle. Several cardboard containers full of double-ought shells sat stacked like building blocks in front of it. On the top shelf an old police issue Beretta pointed its ugly snub nose at him.

"Right, _on._" Jesse muttered, he felt like a winning contestant on The Price is Right. "Elliott, check it out."

Officer Edward turned from the duffel bag he was filling and gave a low whistle.

"Nice, do you know how to use those things?"

Jesse nodded.

"Good, load them up then. I'll take the shotgun; you might as well grab the pistol."

He started with the Remington first. The occasional skeet shooting sessions he had enjoyed with his uncle had made him proficient with a shotgun, and the familiar weight calmed his buzzing nerves. He quickly fed seven blue plastic rounds into its receiver and handed it off with a fair bit of envy.

As far as handguns went, Jesse had fired Jim Hildebrand's pistol enough to know that he was a hopelessly bad shot, and the Beretta 92's double action mechanism had nearly cost him a big toe. By the time he had loaded fifteen bullets into the only clip, Edward had stowed their booty and was ready to go.

"Get your safety on, and grab that bag."

Jesse obeyed, quickly stuffing the loaded gun into a side pocket and shouldering the duffel bag. The rounds tinked together and the corners of the boxes dug into his bony shoulders as he and the small cop jogged upstairs. Pat Davies was left for another time.

The East wing seemed clear of danger as they whizzed through. Jesse had enough time to feel relief that their fortifications were holding. He was out of breath by the time they make it into the lobby and couldn't hear the battle being fought somewhere in the station over his wheezing until Elliott mentioned it. He hastily pulled the gun out, feeling a simultaneous rush of adrenaline and spasm of fear.

"Keep close; don't shoot until I do." The tendons on Edward's hands bulged as he gripped the shotgun.

The gunfire was getting louder as they made their way through the West wing, nearer the briefing room Jesse was fighting two opposing urges, one to run back to the garage, as far away as possible, the other to charge past the cautious Officer Edward and rush to the rescue. It took willpower nearly beyond him to stay rooted behind the cop as they made their careful advance. Edward stopped at the door that led to the briefing room hallway, listened, Jesse forced away another urge to shove him aside and storm through. Slowly they entered.

"Damn!" He screamed, the Remington barked, there was a quick _click-chunk_ as he chambered a round, then another shot fired.

Edward blocked too much of the hallway for him to shoot safely, but Jesse was tall enough to see a half dozen bodies askew on the tiled floor. Up ahead a dirty breeze blew through a bank of open windows.

_- Those shutters again? -_

"Let's go!"

They charged up the hallway, one of the bodies was not quite dead enough and feebly stretched a partially skinned arm out at them. Outside two zombies ambled toward the station. Edward's shotgun boomed again as he turned the corner, young man wearing a Nirvana T shirt teetered backward, the geometry of his head severely altered by the blast. The rest of the room was clear.

Elliot stopped at the switch plate for the shutters, wheeled the shotgun in his arms with a drum major's flair and proceeded to mercilessly beat it with the gun's black plastic stock. Between DaSilva and Edward, Jesse had never witnessed so much vitriol directed at a small metal box in his life. He backed against the wall; the duffel bag jabbed him in the spine as readied his pistol. The nearest zombie, a man in what was once a designer suit was ten feet away.

_-Safety off.-_

**Click**

_-Feet apart, deep breath, aim.-_

The zombie inched closer, the pistol's sights reciprocated between its upper torso and its hairline.

_-Half breath out and hold, steady pressure on the trigger. -_

The gun came to life in his hands, the zombie tipped backward. Its arms pin wheeled but it righted itself and started forward. Jesse could not see where he had hit it.

_-Fuck!- _

Jesse fired again, and again, both shots missed completely.

_-Damn it! -_

Jesse groaned thickly, his hands trembled and he had forgotten all his shooting lessons. Another two shots droned safely past as he fired blindly, the business zombie was a yard away from the window.

_-Oh God, Pease help!- _

Somewhere in the cosmos, a sleepy God answered Jesse's silent prayer and the shutters slammed shut. His last shot punched a neat hole through the corrugated steel, sounding like a snare drum.

Edward spun the gun around and charged down the hallway, his boots crunching over broken glass. Jesse's ears were starting to ring, but he could hear the loud ripping of Lou's MP-5 on the other side of the next door.

Mancini Carlson and Branagh were halfway down the hallway, firing into the briefing room's open double doors. Two more dead bodies lay between them. Jesse feared the worst as he ran down to meet them. By the time he reached the heavy walnut doors the last of the intruding zombies was collapsing to the floor at the base of the operations map, which was now shredded with bullet holes.

Jarring silence replaced the bedlam entirely too quickly. Nothing moved in the destroyed room, but there were corpses, too many to count, strewn everywhere.

_- Stacey. -_

The four cops crept into the room; overhead the fluorescent lighting flickered and buzzed with what would be considered an epileptic's hell. Jesse followed the crew in, and though he would not notice at the time, the young mechanic had successfully learned how to compartmentalize. The past day and a half existed in a reality separate from the one he normally occupied. The fact that Jesse had just turned Jack Anderson's bloody corpse over with his right foot registered only deep enough in his cerebellum to remind him to be wary of infected blood. He sleepwalked through the nightmarish mess, all too aware that he was going to come across the body of a young woman in a black tank top and sawdust coloured hair, he was beyond grief. His mind had shut off in an effort to save itself.

_-She's in here. - _

Jesse was perplexed; he couldn't find her, to his left Lou was kicking down the locked storage closet door. Jesse could swear he could hear female voices, barely audible over his tinnitus. The door swung open on its own, Lou took an unintentionally theatrical step into the closet as his target disappeared. Out protruded a long sleek black barrel; Jesse felt the small spark of hope. Moments later the rest of the Mossberg appeared along with Officer Ford. Suit Woman and a girl wearing a black tank top with sun bleached brown hair followed.

_- Unbelievable! -_

Stacey's saucer eyes took in the grizzly scene; she shot a hand up to her open mouth and wrenched her head away.

"OhmyGodIneedtogetoutofhererightnow!" She stammered and hurdled out of the room.

"Hey, it's not safe out there." Carlson called after her.

Jesse started toward the exit, and the Sergeant followed. Stacey stood motionless with her head resting on the dirty, cream coloured plaster wall ten feet down the hallway. She flinched as he put his hand on her hot shoulder.

"I'm glad you're okay."

It took her a long time to respond.

"He locked the door." She said to the plaster. "I can still hear them screaming, the sound of their.... Of Sherry...."

Jesse wasn't particularly good at comforting people. After standing awkwardly for a minute or two with his hand simmering just above her deltoid, he ended up mumbling something about it not being her fault. It came off hollow; of course it wasn't her fault.

"Jesse" her voice cracked "Please leave me alone."

She turned her back to him, his hand slipped off her sweat slick skin as she walked away._-Please don't freak out, I don't think I can handle much more.-_

Feeling impotent, he turned away from his sister in law, but Stacey didn't freak out. He couldn't even hear her crying. She wasn't going to shut down like Martin, she stronger than him, that much was certain.

Davies believed that the cops at Larch Street would be ready tomorrow; could they survive even that long? He poked into his pocket and felt the Beretta's reassuring smooth steel. Jesse wasn't prepared to die just yet. They would make it; Stacey would be fine in a bit. They would escape, or be rescued. He could still marry Susan.

He took his hand off the pistol and glanced back at Stacey, she had her Saint Christopher medallion clasped in one hand as she muttered what might have been a prayer under her breath. He just hoped someone up there was paying attention.


	8. The Hunt

**September 27 1998 9:55 PM- The hunt**

Jesse sat in a swivelling office chair that once belonged to Special Tactics and Rescue Squad member Jill Valentine. Suit Woman, sat across from him at Chris Redfield's desk. Stacey was perched between them on some banker's boxes stacked against the wall with her nose poked into what appeared to be someone's diary or notebook. Jesse was relieved that Stacey had seemed to return to her normal, albeit more sombre, self.

He spun around on the chair, kicked his feet up onto the desk and leaned back. Across the room the surviving police officers sat huddled near an old AM radio that had its antenna wired to a galvanized steel conduit pipe for better reception. At the moment KJRN was belting out stale country music without all too much static interference. Jesse closed his eyes and felt the hairs on the scruff of his neck tingle as the eerie opening riff to CCR's "Run Through the Jungle" built on itself. Everyone in the STARS room craned their heads to the RCA. John Fogarty cut in at the appropriate time.

**Whoa, thought it was a nightmare**

**Lo, it's all so true**

**They told me, don't go walkin' slow**

**Cause devils on the loose**

**Better run through the jungle**

**Better run through the jungle**

**Better run through the jungle**

**And don't look back**

Could the DJ have selected a more appropriate song to soundtrack their current situation? Jesse decided that "Bad Moon Rising" would also have fit nicely, although he was adamant that Credence Clearwater Revival could hardly be considered classic country. KJRN's programmers were grasping at straws with that one, though one could only play "Walk the Line" so many times before deciding to expand one's horizons. He shook his head and felt for his cigarettes before realizing that Dave Ford, now absent along with Sergeant Carlson, still had his lighter. Annoyed, he began fruitlessly rifling through Ms. Valentine's desk. He had given up shortly after locating Jill Valentine's elusive library card but before John Fogarty's wailing harmonica faded to KJRN's evening personality.

Lou Mancini shushed the room, despite the fact that everyone had already shushed.

**You're listening to KJRN. Classic Country, This is Henry Burnside with the ten o-clock news. **

**President Clinton continues his tour through the Middle East in efforts to get Israeli and Palestinian officials back to the negotiation table following the breakdown of the Oslo Peace Accord. He will meet with both parties Monday in Tel Aviv.**

**Efforts are underway to reopen blocked sections of highway 20 following a rockslide 10 miles east of Mill City. Linn County Department of Highways Manager Gerald Decker announced earlier today that heavy equipment is being brought to the area and will be working through the night. Traffic is being diverted to county road 342. Decker estimates the road will be open to general traffic early tomorrow afternoon. **

**A spokesman for Umbrella Inc. has reported that an industrial accident at their ammonium nitrate plant in Raccoon City has caused massive blackouts throughout the city. Ammonium Nitrate, a common fertilizer, can form an extremely explosive substance when mixed with other chemicals. As a precautionary measure State Police have cordoned off access to the city by highway 97. Umbrella has stated that the small fire at the plant has been extinguished and Hazardous Materials specialists are attempting to contain the spill. Raccoon City mayor Phillip Warren was unavailable for comment. **

**In sports the Portland Trail Blazers have decided to trade troubled forward Isaiah Rider to the Atlanta Hawks, just ahead of the start of regular season play...**

"CONTAINED MY ASS, YOU LYING SONS OF BITCHES!" Lou hollered, and flung a heavy three ring binder at the RCA, sending it crashing to the floor. Torn loose-leaf fluttered down after it.

"Lou! Come on, that's probably the only radio up here!" Marvin scrambled after the radio, which was now jammed between stations, they would probably never find out who the Portland Trail Blazers received in exchange for Isaiah Rider.

Lou spun around; his eyes were protruding from their deep sockets.

"DID YOU HEAR THAT?.... FERTILIZER?" His voice squeaked. Jesse couldn't help but smile inwardly when Lou was upset "UMBRELLA SENT US UP THE CREEK, THEY DID THIS TO US!"

Marvin Branagh dropped the cross-eyed RCA and slowly turned toward Mancini, Jesse could see liquid fire in the black cop's eyes.

"Lou, mention Umbrella _one _more time," His words clipped "and I swear..."

"Marv…" Elliot Edward started.

"He's right, you know." Suit Woman said calmly. "Lou... he's telling the truth."

"How would you know that?" Edward asked, genuinely interested.

Allison bent down, showing off her grey roots, and lugged an overstuffed attaché case onto the desk. She thrust a ream of paper tucked into an orange duo tang at the young cop. Elliot pushed his glasses further up his straight nose and peered inside.

"I took Physics in school, not Biology. What does all this mean? I don't...whoa, that's weird..."

Marv and Mancini forgot their differences and formed a scrum around Officer Edward. Jesse was up as well, peering over Lou's beefy shoulder. Elliot had flipped a third of the way through. A colour picture of a naked zombie clamped to an operating table occupied half a page, directly below it centred on the page in bold was the date.

**22/11/1997 16:34 **

The writing underneath was mostly scientific jargon_...Continued enhancement of virus amplification, no discernable improvement re: necrosis to dermal layers, prefrontal cortex... _Jesse felt light-headed; the Umbrella logo was printed on both top corners of the page. Elliot flipped back a page, another colour photo with the time stamp.

**22/11/1997 16:12**

The zombie looked less dishevelled, less like a zombie. Edward flipped back page after page, in time lapse the undead monster morphed back into a writhing blond man. Every sheet of paper was printed on Umbrella letterhead. Umbrella. The same company his mother, and Susan's father proudly worked for. What part of this monster had Janet Franks, microbiologist and mother to Jesse Daniel Franks contributed to?

Elliot turned to the section's title page, typed in size twenty two Times New Roman.

**T-Virus, "Expediter" Strain**

**Lot 17**

**Live Tissue Test 145c**

**Spencer Mansion Facility**

**22/11/1997**

**W. Birkin **

Jesse felt hot breath on his cheek; Stacey had crept behind him and was examining W. Birkin's notes. He turned to her drunkenly; the room swam like he was having a bad nicotine head rush.

_-W. Birkin, I know him. Mom used to have him and his wife over for supper. Bill and...Annette-_

"I need to sit down." Jesse slurred and groped for a chair.

_- 1997, they were doing this for over a year. The STARS team was right. -_

"Where did you get this?" Marvin asked Suit Woman.

Allison cracked a smile that had all the warmth of an autopsy room.

"_That, _was going to be the Raccoon Herald's Pulitzer Prize, Ben still won't tell me how he got it, but I've been holding on to it for over a month now. Shultz, Bertolucci and I were supposed to take it to the DA in Salem tomorrow." She laughed humourlessly. "I guess we won't be making that meeting."

"Why didn't you tell us about this before?"

"I didn't know who I could trust, I'll bet whoever has been sabotaging this place is on the Umbrella payroll. They may not have intentionally spilled the T-Virus, that's what they named the zombie sickness, but you can take it to the bank that they're going to cover their butts good and proper. That means that _no one _in Raccoon City is going to escape, especially not newspaper editors with nice big files full of evidence."

"So why tell us now?" Branagh still had a doubtful tone in his voice.

Suit Woman dropped her eyes to her lap.

"I really don't think it matters anymore, I'm not going to make it out of here." She looked back up at Branagh, The defiant set of her jaw gone. "Just make sure that once I'm dead, whoever is left hangs on to this file, we still have to try to get the truth out to someone."

Jesse tried to think, but his head felt full of steel wool. He had met the man who murdered Raccoon City. Bill Birkin, the small polite man, who looked like a civil servant and acted like Jonas Salk, was a modern day Dr. Mengele. Bill Birkin, who smiled and treated teenage Jesse like an adult, who had an intelligent wife and a young daughter. What was their girl's name? Shelly? Shirley?

_-Something like that, or Sherry. Yeah, Sherry.- _

Two pieces fit together in Jesse's mind with a solid clunk. The girl downstairs had been Annette Birkin's spitting image. Sherry, the cancer cop, was Bill and Annette's daughter. Had she been killed by her father's, and possibly Jesse's mother's, creation? He recalled how she proudly declared that her parents were going to cure cancer.

_- Cure cancer, huh? -_

"Why would they?" Jesse spoke, his own voice sounded alien to him "Why would _Umbrella _do this? Design this... T-Virus?"

Suit Woman slowly spun in her chair to face him.

"The same reason anyone builds a weapon, Slim. Power and money. Imagine inventing something more terrifying and destructive than the hydrogen bomb. Now imagine selling it to whoever had the biggest wallet, I'm sure you could find a buyer without too much convincing. Or maybe you decide to hold on your new weapon, and then you get to be the boss. Umbrella is a company, and companies like to make money. The way people here behave you would think that they worked for the Salvation Army."

"Jesus," Branagh muttered shaking his head slowly "Chief Irons poked so many holes in the STARS' story that none of us..."

"Irons is on Umbrella's payroll, he has been for years." Allison interrupted "Didn't you ever wonder where he was getting the cash to buy all that art he collects?"

"We sort of figured he was skimming off the top of our budget." Edward said with a wan smile.

"You don't think he's been the one messing things up here do you?" Stacey asked.

"It's a possibility, but I don't know. From what I know of the man he doesn't seem to be a hands on kind of guy."

"I bet he is." Stacey maintained. "He looks crazy."

Dave Ford entered the STARS office. Stacey narrowed her eyes at him, then quickly looked away, suddenly interested in some police memorandums. He informed the group that Sergeant Carlson had snuck up into the station's old clock tower and would keep a lookout for the RPD helicopter should the surviving police at Larch Street manage to repair it. Carlson had one of the remaining walkie-talkies and Dave had the other.

The Sergeant also recommended that they devise an additional escape plan, which sparked intense debate. Mancini was insistent that they not bother. He knew Bell, the helicopter pilot, personally and claimed that "If Tom said that he'd get that bird in the air, that's just what he'll do, sure as shit." Elliot suggested that they wait until daylight, then head south to the Arklay River. They could find a boat and take it down the river out of town To Jesse that idea sounded suicidal, Ford and Suit Woman concurred.

"How about the sewers?" Branagh mused.

"Eww!" Stacey exclaimed.

"Would you rather die?" Marv shot back. "My brother and I used to work for Public Works. There's a utility tunnel that runs from almost one end of Oak Street to the other. If we follow the water mains, we could make it into the treatment plant, there's an aqueduct that goes right to a pump house at Victory Lake. The water is only a few feet deep."

"Or we could get lost down there and die." Lou challenged.

Jesse had watched the movie "CHUD" at an entirely inappropriate age, and had been wary of sewers his entire life. He recalled the scene where scaly subterranean mutants grab a woman who had been walking her poodle and drag her down into a manhole, poodle in tow. Susan would have loved it. That scene had haunted many of his boyhood dreams; and to this day he would avoid manhole covers, lest a pair of slimy talons reach for his ankles. Nevertheless, the sewers were almost certainly safer than taking the streets, even if they should encounter the occasional CHUD.

"I saw a manhole in the basement near the dog kennels; it will probably meet up with the main tunnel." Marvin continued.

Eventually the consensus was reached that they would wait for the helicopter until tomorrow afternoon. If the chopper was a no show, escape by sewer would be their next course of action. The crashed paddy wagon still blocked the entrance to the kennels, but Jesse figured that it would run long enough to be driven out of the way, or if it didn't they could pull it with a length of chain and one of the Furys.

"Couldn't we just find a Sherman tank somewhere? Blast our way out?" Dave suggested. No one laughed.

They had twenty hours to kill before they would try the tunnels. Until then it would be a very long wait.

Three hours and two bathroom breaks later a chill began to permeate the room, Jesse extricated himself from the office chair he had been occupying and approached the radiator against the far wall. The spit on his pointer finger should have sizzled the instant he touched it, but the pig iron was barely warm, the boiler downstairs must have flamed out. Jesse cursed quietly; September nights cooled off extremely quickly in the mountains, especially if they got a north wind out of Alberta. The next eighteen hours would have another level of discomfort added.

_- Goody! -_

He twisted at the waist, feeling his vertebrae pop and returned to Jill Valentine's desk. He sat facing Stacey, who had exchanged Redfield's notes for Bill Birkin's little orange book of horrors.

"We're going to need to find you a sweater soon, the heat is out."

She shook her head, chuckled, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"No way, I might actually cool off a bit. I'm always way too warm. Besides, I can only wear a shirt with sleeves in winter; otherwise I get way too sweaty."

Jesse chuckled as well. "Wow, that's hot."

"No pun intended right?" She replied with Susan's grin. "Don't tease, it's really embarrassing."

"Actually it's good the heat is off." Lou Mancini interjected. "There's a lot of dead bodies downstairs that are going to (he pronounced "going to" goin-na) get ripe pretty quick sitting next to a heater. Have you ever smelled a rotting body? It's about the worst stink ever."

Jesse had to give Lou credit; he had managed to blast their moment of levity into oblivion in approximately six seconds. Stacey returned to Birkin's notes and began purposefully leafing through the pages.

"That reminds me. Where exactly have you been shooting these zombies?" She asked.

Lou shrugged, and ran a big hand through his hair.

"In the head mostly, body shots just slow them down." He narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

Stacey (who _had _studied biology in school) found the page she had been searching for and explained that in order to completely kill a T-virus zombie such as the unfortunate live tissue test 145c (and most of Raccoon City's citizens), the brain stem has to be destroyed. Damage to the frontal lobe, or any other part of the brain might knock them out, but essentially, the medulla oblongata was the only section of withered brain a zombie needed. There was an excellent chance that many of the zombies downstairs would rise again, circuitry a bit scrambled, but just as hungry.

Lou frowned, reminding the camp that there were corpses in the operation's room, the morgue, and Pat Davies was still in the basement hallway. Edward recalled that the wounded from the garage had been taken into the interrogation rooms in the East wing. They had all shown the symptoms of infection and were executed or "put down" was the sanitized euphemism he had used, as if they had a stray cat problem. Muttering unhappily, Lou slapped a freshly loaded magazine into his submachine gun as he, Elliott and Branagh prepared to sweep the precinct once again. Officer Whiskey Breath would guard the remaining civilian trio.

Branagh et al had been gone half an hour when they all heard it, a strange _scritchscritch-scritch, _accompanied by the sound of crumbling plasterand emphasymatic breathing.

Being a mechanic, Jesse knew the sort of damage that could be caused by revving an engine from cold idle to it's redline. As he felt his heart pound his ribcage he wondered if the same applied to the human body. He snatched the Berretta and crouched behind the desk, just ahead of Stacey and Allison, pantomiming the zipping of one's mouth to them. Dave stood across the room, swaying slightly with his Mossberg pointed at the door, and whatever lurked behind it.

The thing that crawled into view was something out of a fever dream. Jesse supposed it looked human, though _humanoid_ would have been a more appropriate term. Its flayed body could have been that of a skinless man, excluding the long sharp claws in lieu of fingers (which dug deep handholds into the porous hallway walls). It was the head that was grossly different, larger that a human's, with a pale coloured cerebellum visible under a thin membrane, and a jack-o lantern mouth filled with teeth like roofing nails. It stopped at the doorway and turned its eyeless face to them, from its gaping maw protruded an impossibly long pink tongue, resembling that of a lizard, perhaps a gecko or an iguana.

Jesse had never believed that it was feasibly possible to wet oneself with fear until that moment, forgetting the pistol in his hands; he gawked at the aberration that clung sideways on the wall in front of him. He recalled Pat Davies' words.

"_Something else, like a nightmare." _

He couldn't have agreed more with Officer Davies, behind him Suit Woman stifled a scream.

The thing drew a rasping breath, it sounded like his mother's just before she went on the ventilators, and catapulted itself off the wall into the office. Instinctively he squeezed the Beretta's trigger, which didn't move.

_-Safety! -_

Cursing himself, Jesse fumbled to flip the gun's safety, Ford's shotgun roared, and he shot his eyes up, the creature was scurrying on all fours toward Dave, dragging one wounded leg, leaving a trail of black blood. Dave fired again, shredding its shoulder and driving its upper torso into the ceramic tile; it hissed like a punctured radiator and lashed its whip tongue out.

Jesse had the Beretta up again, and squeezed off a pair of wild shots. The first bullet buried itself in a desk, three inches from Ford's left thigh. But as Jesse fired the second, the horrible lizard man coiled and sprang at the cop. It leapt up into Jesse's high shot, catching it in the head. Brains the colour of tapioca pudding fanned out, and it was dead by the time it struck Dave in the chest. They landed together in a lover's embrace.

Jesse let out a long shuddering breath and rushed to Ford's rescue, into a stink as unique as the creature itself. It smelled like the reptile tank at the zoo, with a nasty chemical undertone, something the likes of industrial cleaner or embalming fluid.

"Dave?" Jesse asked; his voice shook.

Officer Ford looked as dead as the thing on top of him, save for his pin-balling eyes. Slowly he wriggled out from under the creature, righting himself and reaching for his Mossberg. He stared down at the dead monster and snorted laughter. Above a bib of dark blood his lips curled into a toothy grin.

"You okay?"

Ford's snickering grew into a good-natured laugh, an unhealthily good-natured laugh that made Jesse cringe. Soon the cop was bent over, cackling breathlessly with tears streaming down his dirty face. It was as if someone had told him the joke of a lifetime, a real pant pisser, Martin would have called it.

Ford stumbled for the door, hysterical. His feet squished through the thing's blood.

"Where are you _going_?" Stacey demanded, charging forward. "You're _not_ leaving us here."

He wheeled around and stretched the big gun out at them, his smile evaporating. Stacey froze in her steps.

"You stay right where you are, Girlie." His eyes bored directly into theirs. "I'm getting outta here and _you're _not invited." He shambled out to the hallway; they could hear his raw voice drift back to them, still laughing.

"Well, that's just _great_." Suit Woman sneered "I hope you have a lot of ammo for that gun, Slim."

A quick count revealed that Jesse had eight rounds left. At his feet the creature's left leg twitched.

It was then that Jesse decided that he could not afford to panic; his family had a fair amount of soldier blood he could draw on. His Uncle Tyler had survived a tour in Vietnam, and his grandfather had been a decorated squadron leader before he disappeared in his B-17 somewhere over the Third Reich. If Jesse H. L. Franks had managed to fly a straight line though a sky full of shrapnel and angry Luftwaffe, surely Jesse D. Franks could keep his wits and at least come up with a plan.

"I've got half a clip." The thing's leg jitterbugged. Nerves, Jesse concluded. "Any idea what that thing is?"

Allison nodded.

"It's a Bio Organic Weapon, a BOW, and it's what Umbrella is really interested in designing. The zombies are an _uncontrolled _T-Virus mutation, but this guy? They put time into engineering him; into creating a brand new life form, bred to hunt and kill, then die. He must have gotten loose somehow."

"How many of them are there?"

Suit Woman didn't know, though she mentioned that Ben Bertolucci had heard rumblings of a large underground lab somewhere in the industrial park. There could be hundreds.

_- So, what are our options? - _

There was no way of knowing where the remaining police were, aside from Sergeant Carlson., and Jesse had never been inside the clock tower. He did not know if four people could even fit inside. They could barricade themselves inside the STARS office until the others returned, if the others returned. There was no radio to call for rescue, how long would eight bullets and Jesse's novice marksmanship protect them?

Three distinctive blasts from Ford's Mossberg echoing down the hallway helped Jesse make up his mind. He opted that they should meet up with Sergeant Carlson. It was clearly dangerous to venture out alone, but Neil had a radio, ammunition and a dead eyed aim with his nine millimetre pistol. Jesse prompted himself further, recalling that the clock tower was accessible from the second floor and a path had been cleared for them earlier that night. Stacey and Allison agreed with his strategy, and they were on their way quickly. Halfway down the hallway Dave's shotgun rang out once more.

_-That asshole still has my lighter. I hope you end up a zombie's supper. - _Jesse thought sourly.

The clock tower entrance was located on a third story balcony overlooking the lobby. The only way to access it was up a narrow staircase tucked into the back corner of the archives room. As Jesse stepped into the mildewy smelling room he tightened his sweat slick grip on the Beretta.

- _Eight bullets and a shaky hand, good grief! - _

He had once asked his Uncle, who unlike many veterans had no qualms recounting his wartime experiences, how he managed to keep his cool in a jungle filled with booby traps and men with guns. Tyler Franks shrugged in his plaid flannel jacket and ran both hands through his long peppery hair. Jesse still remembers his response.

"Well, first of all, it wasn't like what they show in the movies. Mostly Vietnam was a big boring stink hole filled with bugs and leeches. About two months into my tour, they dropped us off in the hills around Quang-Tri City where we started seeing some shooting for the first time, and guys I knew were getting wasted. I just sorta let fate decide what was going to happen to me. By that time I seen better people than me die, better soldiers than me die, and worse soldiers than me live. So I just went "Okay, if I'm going to get wasted today, it's gonna mostly be outta my control, so that's the way she goes. And if I live, not just today, but tomorrow and the day after, and I make it through my tour, then maybe there was some reason for me to live. Maybe I'm supposed to do something important with my life, or maybe not, but I'm gonna enjoy every day I've got coming to me just the same, and I have... Now hand me those minnows, I think I just got cleaned."

_- Out of my control. -_

They had started for the stairs to the third story balcony when directly above them a skylight exploded, raining a jagged galaxy of glass shards onto them. Allison shrieked as a wedge shaped splinter the size of a dinner plate buried itself deep into her collar. Behind them a pink blur fell from the roof, something man sized.

_-Shit! Shit! Shit!-_

"Run!" Jesse choked out and thrust his gun out at the blur, another of those things, glass pellets tinkled off the beak of his baseball cap and shoulders to the floor.

Jesse fired a hasty shot into the parquet floor between its arms. The thing's tongue darted out, and oblivious to Jesse's presence, it pivoted toward Suit Woman who hadn't moved and continued her ululating screech.

"Run!" Jesse hollered and stepped forward, firing off another salvo. Two of his four bullets found their mark, opening up large holes in the thing's chest. He hoped it was feeling them.

Allison did not run, she was bent over with her hands up to her face, blood trickled through her fingers.

_-Her eyes, Oh man, her eyes! -_

In a familiar gesture the thing coiled up and pounced, its slippery hide brushing past Jesse, and took Allison down. Her scream becoming a momentary grunt.

Above him Stacey was shouting his name; another pink blur fell from above. Now it was Jesse's turn to run. He had no time to feel remorse for abandoning Suit Woman, just as he could not afford a glance behind; his one goal was the small doorway thirty yards ahead. He could hear the _scritch-scritchscritch _at his heels, over Allison's tortured wail. Jesse pumped his arms and pistoned his legs up twenty stairs, and then Suit Woman's scream cut off abruptly, as if someone had hit **stop **on a cassette player. It was not how people were supposed to die, in the creature features Susan so relished a victim's scream would wind down, like an air raid siren. Once again art did not imitate life, or in this case, death.

Stacey slammed the door the moment he was through, the balcony's railing digging into his sternum as he skittered into it.

"Come on!" she urged.

"This... way..." he gasped.

The clock tower door was locked, and Jesse rapped on the brown enamel sheet metal with the butt of his gun hard enough to scuff the paint down to galvanized steel. Suddenly Stacey's hand gripped his bicep as she shouted a warning he didn't bother deciphering. Jesse spun on his heels and groaned; the archives room door was shuddering furiously; those things wanted more meat.

"COME ON. LET US IN!" Stacey bellowed and beat her fists against the door.

_-That's the way she goes.-_

Slowly, Jesse raised the gun, he had three or four bullets left to use up. Ahead the hardwood paneling began to splinter; he kept his sights trained on the floor in front of the doorway. Strangely he felt exhilarated, his heart was hammering away and though Jesse could not see it, his mouth had screwed into a grim smile. Behind him Stacey continued pounding on the metal door, her hoarse voice already cracking. The lower panel blew out, one of the things darted towards them.

**Bang! A** miss.

**Bang!** A hit, in one arm.

**Bang! **Another hit, it was twenty feet away, still rasping and hissing.

**Click! **

_-Damn!-_

Strong hands grabbed him, and Stacey lugged him into the narrow base of the tower. With a blue flash, Neil bumped past them. His eyes widened and he raised his gun in a fluid motion, firing immediately. Jesse heard a squeal, almost the sound of a boiled lobster, and then a long pink whip tongue, like that of an iguana or a gecko, lashed out, puncturing Carlson's upper torso. The Sergeant staggered sideways with one hand held to a knifelike slit in his belly, gun still up and churning out steel jacketed parabellum rounds. His wire framed bifocals winked reflected light from the bare 60 watt bulb in the clock tower as he groped for the knob with his bloody hand, then slammed the door shut. Gunfire continued on the other side for a heartbeat, and then all Jesse could hear was the blood in his ears and the slight whistle of his ballooning lungs. They were safe.

Two hours later Jesse and Stacey sat together on the clock tower's barn board floor. A frigid breeze blew through the open steel grating that offered a bleak view of a shattered city. Stacey shivered next to him and tucked in tighter, it was obviously cold enough for her now, although she had turned down his offer to wear his coveralls. Jesse was secretly glad, as he was freezing as well. He squinted through the binoculars Carlson had brought up, at the glowing embers of what had once been the Cider District. His childhood home and most certainly Stacey's charred down to their basements. To the West, Jordan Road's streetlights snaked up through the mountains, up to Susan, its proximity when viewed through binoculars almost mocking him.

Jesse was still attempting to remain positive despite the bleak reality of their situation, in twenty four hours their numbers had steadily declined to a paltry five survivors. This should have depressed him, but if they were to escape either by helicopter or through the sewers, a small group might in fact be beneficial. It was also their good luck that Sergeant Carlson had left his radio and extra ammunition in the tower before rushing to their rescue, and his demise. Stacey had made contact with the remaining police, who were laying low in the West wing's windowless media room and would rejoin them tomorrow afternoon. Aside from physical discomfort, thirst, fear, fatigue and boredom, things were not all bad.

Stacey got to her feet, stretched, and rubbed her bare arms. It still confounded Jesse, who had no siblings and would never understand how even a set of twins could possess entirely unique personalities, how she and Susan could be sisters. Susan, the rebellious prankster was most definitely the odd one out in an otherwise wholesome Irish Catholic family. Stacey, on the other hand, was without a doubt her parents' child. It was not difficult to imagine her as an efficient mother, carting a vanload of freckled children to various clubs and activities after a hectic day at work.

She laced her long fingers through the window's grating and sighed.

"What do you think our chances are Jesse?" She asked without turning around. "Of making it out of here?"

"Probably not too good." He answered truthfully.

"Are you scared?"

"Yeah, shitless." Jesse laughed a bit. "Are you?"

Stacey shook her head, her fine hair fluttered in the breeze.

"I'm not really worried about dying, because I'm pretty sure that I'll go to heaven. It's the whole being killed part that frightens me. Those things...it would be a bad way to go, I don't want to die like that…like Allison. But if it was peaceful, no...I don't think I would be afraid."

_-Okay, It's time to change the subject. -_

"So what's the first thing you're going to do once we make it out of here?" He asked.

Stacey huffed exasperation and turned to face him.

"I'm not even sure if I want to leave. Most of my family is dead, my friends, too. Everything I care about is somewhere in this city, and now, it's _all _gone." Her shamrock green eyes welled up with tears but not a single drop spilled onto her checks. "Actually I _hope _Iget killed."

Behind her the night sky lit up as a propane tank exploded with a low _whump!_

Jesse groaned and rolled his eyes.

"That's stupid, what about your sister? Don't you have college friends?" He blurted, why was he getting angry?

"Oh yeah, and what am I supposed to do? Live with you and Suzie? I bet that would get old quick." She was nearly shouting, but still no tears fell. "At least _you _have someone waiting for you. What do I have now? Some pothead losers from my quad, and a sister who I never got along with."

Jesse's blood began to boil; he jumped to his feet, knees popping.

"You're right, for the first time in my life I _do _have someone waiting for me." He spat back. "What, are you trying to make me feel guilty for that? At least you _had _a family. Shit, my Dad was dead before I was born, and my Mom worked so much I barely saw her, and now she's dead too. So you know what? BOO HOO! People die, deal with it."

Jesse always had a strange relationship with his temper. Upon release, it felt euphoric, orgasmic, as unfiltered emotion was piped directly from brain stem to lungs. Then with almost the same amount of time it took to orgasm, guilt struck. And the guilt was not nearly as willing to explode, and then subside. No, the guilt would fester, eating him from inside.

He slumped his shoulders. Jesus, why was he yelling at a girl who had just watched her house burn to the ground? He cast his muddy coloured eyes to the wooden planks between his feet. He could hear Stacey drawing short breaths between her teeth, either in grief or anger. He couldn't meet her eyes. Apology never came easily to him.

"Ah, fuck it." He finally said. "That was a shitty thing to say. I'm a real jerk."

"It's not fair." The anger had left her voice as well. "What did Owen do to deserve this?"

Owen Kelso, who had dark hair like Susan, was natural athlete like Stacey, even tempered like his father, killed before his thirteenth birthday.

"I don't know." Jesse replied, and slumped back to the floor. Their argument had sapped the last of his energy.

After a few minutes Stacey walked over and sat next to him. His eyelids felt weighted with lead foil. Even the cold breeze wasn't keeping him awake. He asked Stacey if she could keep watch for an hour, then let his lids shut out the ruined vista before him. Before sleep took him Stacey spoke.

"I'd go to one of those Flying J truck stops and order that huge breakfast they serve, "The Hungry Man" I think they call it. I'd get that, witha side of pancakes, and _lots_ of coffee."

"Hmmm?" Jesse mumbled.

"You asked what was the first thing I'd do when we got out of here. I'd eat breakfast."

Jesse smiled; Eamon and Trudy Kelso's children had either been blessed or cursed with the most prodigious appetites he had ever seen. Still the guilt gnawed at him.

"You know, you can stay with me and Susan as long as you want, you don't have to be alone."

Stacey rested her head on his shoulder, she smelled like stale sweat, spent adrenaline, and watermelon shampoo.

"Thanks Jesse."

"Wake me up after an hour, 'kay?"

"Okay."

Jesse slept, and though he rarely remembered his dreams, and rarer yet would have one that chose to reoccur, that night's foray into his subconscious would return several times in his life, leaving him in a state of unease for most of the following day as he pondered its significance.

He was driving his first car, an avocado green '71 Cyclone with a shredded vinyl roof and primer grey fenders, down an impossibly windy mountain road. All four windows were cranked down, and Susan was laughing soundlessly in the seat next to him, the rushing wind drowning out her voice and blowing raven hair away from her small oval face. She turned, grinning her Cheshire cat's grin, and said something he could not make out. Then, in an instant, he was no longer throwing the big car around tight s-curves, but was planted on the highway's yellow line watching the Mercury's taillights draw further away. Alarmed, he tried to give chase, but could not move his legs. With a wink of sunlight, his car and girl were out of sight. Something warm wrapped around his lower body. Jesse looked down and watched helplessly as his lower torso was being drawn _into _the highway. The asphalt had come alive around him, and was pulling him in greedily. He sank further into the blacktop, his upper thighs disappearing completely as he struggled frenetically, screaming soundlessly. Strangely, the wind noise was still in his ears, sounding more like a jet turbine, monolithic and deafening. By the time he was up to his ribs, Jesse realised that he was not alone. He wrenched his upper body around, in an effort to look behind him, the blacktop sucking in his hands. Susan was fifteen feet behind him, buried up to her shoulders, staring up at the sun with dead eyes. Behind her, Martin, only his head and one arm exposed, rested his chin on the highway. Kevin Arsenault, both arms raised to the sky as if he was celebrating a touchdown, was buried up to his nose. Behind Kevin was his Mother. Behind Janet Franks; Steve Visser. Evenly spaced on the dotted line, a row of planted heads and torsos, resembling some sort of Kafkaesque highway divider, stretched back for miles, back to a green blanket of pine forest cut by a black stripe of road.

_- I was never in that car - _He thought. _- I belong here -_

Jesse woke when he felt the asphalt brush his chin.

He didn't wake with the clichéd gasp and cold sweat, and most certainly not with a sigh of relief. After all he was simply exchanging one nightmare for another. Jesse groaned quietly, his bony ass aching. He cracked his eyes open and glanced down at his watch, he really shouldn't wear one at work but felt naked without it, 5:46 AM. Stacey had let him sleep much longer than an hour. He wasn't sure whether to feel grateful or annoyed.

"Hey, I told you to wake me up" He said, trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible.

She had been standing at the window with the binoculars held up to her serious face. She looked at him distractedly at turned back to the grating.

"I forgot about you." She said quickly, binoculars back up. "Come take a look at this, I think the Army is here."

_-Fucking-A! - _

Jesse quickly forgot about his sore butt and empty stomach and scrambled over to the window, grabbing the binoculars.

"What did you see?" he asked.

"Some of those army jeeps, the big wide ones with machine-guns on the roof. Three of them drove down Jordan road about an hour ago. There's a helicopter, too; it looks like it's sticking to the other side of the river, though. The last time I saw it was ten minutes ago, heading back toward Latham."

There was no sign of traffic on Jordan Road; if the military was going to mount a rescue mission into the city they would need a hell of a lot more than a few Humvees. So what was this then? Reconnaissance? A special ops team?

"Did you see any shooting?" Jesse asked, he had an idea what was going on and did not like it one bit. "Anything in town?"

"No." She answered quickly. "Just those Jeeps full of soldiers, and the helicopter."

After a pregnant pause she asked.

"It's a roadblock isn't it?"

She had read his mind again. They were being sealed in; Jesse could picture something similar happening east of town as well. The State Police and National Guard blocking off the Interstate. Letting no one in, but also no one out. "Sorry sir, but we cannot let you through; there has been a chemical spill in town."

_-What was that medical term they used? Quarantine? That's what they're doing. -_

"Probably." Jesse nodded.

"They're not going to try to get us out." She added, it was not a question, but a stated fact.

"Probably not." he shook his head.

"I'm going to try to get some sleep."

"All right." Jesse rested the binoculars on his lap, his stomach bemoaning its emptiness.

Daybreak should have been around 6:30, though Jesse would be hard pressed to attest to that. The morning of September 28th began with a leaden sky dark enough to have been considered late evening. The only other time Jesse had witnessed this was the morning after Mount St Helens blew; when the fine volcanic ash had blotted out the sun. Outside a cold drizzle fell, snuffing out the remaining blazes west of them, and turning the Cider district into an enormous smudge fire, at least there would be no mosquitoes.

The frigid breeze carried a new variety of reek, gone was the acrid smoke that bit into the lungs. It was replaced with a moist earthy smell, with the rank odour of foul sewer. Only Jesse knew better. That was not sewer he smelled, it was people.

Only once Jesse saw a Humvee head down Jordan road, returning fifteen minutes later. Both times it had a full load of soldiers in combat gear, a changing of the guards no doubt. Would there be more another checkpoint in Latham? There would almost have to be one of some kind, although it would more than likely be manned by local police. No need to worry the locals too much. So long as the disease didn't spill onto the other side of the Arklay River's deep gorge, or past the walled and flooded tailing fields that bordered Raccoon City, they would let the virus run its course. Jesse knew that he was being cynical but couldn't help it, it sounded like something the government would do. _Also it sort of made sense._

He may have given up hope on a rescue from outside, but remained optimistic that the RPD chopper would show up. The notion of escape via sewer terrified him, but one way or another; today would be the day that they made their break.

Stacey slept a half hour with her head resting on his shoulder, he didn't mind. He was not attracted to her, even if he had not been dating her sister, or was six years her senior; Stacey was certainly not the type of girl he was drawn to. It was simply comforting to be in physical contact with someone in time of duress, a reminder that he is not alone, or perhaps an anchor to the sane world. He wriggled out from under her and reached for the radio. It had been three hours since he had checked in with the others. They were still alive, thankfully, and would meet up with them at eleven-o'clock. Elliot Edward sounded nearly drunk with exhaustion.

The two remaining civilians under the RPD's protection spent the morning shuffling around in their small pen, although neither Jesse nor Stacey said as much, both were visibly anxious to make their move. If they were to die out in the streets, than it would be nice to get on with it. Time seemed to have stopped all together, and so they paced, and stared, and talked. What began as idle chatter grew into a long list of "what's your favourite…" questions, though their conversation had taken on the candid nature of a confession booth. Not one to shy away from the heavy subjects, Stacey asked "What's your biggest regret?"

It was an easy one for Jesse. He spoke openly of the last time he had seen his mother. He had left her on her deathbed, after discovering that she had locked her sizable savings and life insurance benefits into a trust fund, accessible to him only after his fortieth birthday, or his graduation from college. She had never accepted his decision to pull wrenches for a living, and goaded him to her final days to find "respectable work" She had paid for her funeral in advance, and cut him a cheque for two thousand dollars for any "unforeseeable expenses." He stormed out of the hospice in a white rage, and spent the evening fuming, downing draft beer in the Arklay Tavern with Kevin Arsenault. The phone woke him up at quarter to noon the following day; it was his Uncle, informing him that his Mom had passed away. He found out later that she had died calling out his name. It was undoubtedly the worst thing Jesse had done in his life, and Stacey was the first person to hear of it. Not once did it cross his mind to tell Susan; it was not the type of thing one bragged about.

Stacey listened intently, and kept her face neutral. She tucked her hair behind her ears and crossed her arms across her flat stomach; it was her turn to answer.

"You know that Suzie and me never got along, I'm sure she told you _that _much at least. I don't know if Mom and Dad had favourites, but I liked to think of myself as their favourite, the _good _daughter. The thing is Suzie made it easy for me, too. She was always so headstrong. It was like she was going out of her way to spite them, especially about boys and partying. That used to drive Mom _nuts_, and I'd play right into it. I made sure Mom and Dad knew as much about what she was up to as possible, I wouldn't make stuff up, I didn't _have _to as long as I kept my ears open. I was the _little spy across the hall_, that's what she called me. It went on for years like that, sort of like a slow war between us, so it wasn't a surprise when she moved out a few days after graduation, up to Latham."

Stacey drew a deep breath, rubbed her stomach and continued,

"So Suzie is up at the resort, doing who knows what, it's been a few years now and I was a senior in High School. We see her sometimes on weekends, but now and again Mom or Dad will start getting after her about something, and I'm right back in their corner, agreeing with everything they said, or called her. Most of the time she'd laugh, actually she _always _laughed, and she'd excuse herself, then we wouldn't see her for a while. Just after Christmas break, I started dating this guy in my physics class. He played Lacrosse and ran cross country; I was in love with him the minute we met. We slept together once; it was my first and only time, but I got pregnant. I'd like to say I was brave about it, but that would be a lie, I pretty much fell apart. He was a nice guy, and I knew that my folks would want me to marry him, but I didn't _want _to get married. What eighteen-year-old does? I was scared that they would kick me out if I told them I wanted to keep it; I was scared of the way people would look at me. I knew that, whatever happened, I wasn't going to be the good daughter anymore, and I think that was what scared me the most. So I panic and end up at Suzie's apartment, bawling my eyes out. Despite our not so great past she was still the only person I thought would understand, only she does more than just understand, she comes up with a plan. I'd finish school; hopefully I wouldn't be showing too much...you know.... pregnant, and then we'd spend the summer and fall with some of her friends in Sacramento. I could give birth to my kid, I'd have to give it up for adoption, of course, and then spend a few months recuperating before going back home. We'd tell Mom and Dad that I'm taking a year off before I go to college. They would have thought it was weird that we were hanging out so much, but they would have bought it, it was brilliant."

She paused, swallowed hard, and wiped at her eyes.

"Well, it turned out that we didn't need to move to California, my third month in, I miscarried, right in the girls change room after gym class. It was the worst feeling in the world, worse than this. So I called Suzie and told her what happened, hung up, and then life went on, I never even thanked her. I just wanted to shut that part of my life away, like it never happened; only I shut her out, too. She was the only person who knew my secret, _but_ that was still one person too many. That fall I went to school in Portland, and haven't really spoken to her much since. So, that's my biggest regret, that I might not have the chance to make her believe that I'm sorry, and I appreciated her kindness. If you make it out and I don't, I want you to tell her for me."

By the time they heard approaching gunfire at ten to eleven, both survivors had done their best to expunge the dark spots on their consciences, and bitten their nails down to the quick.

Jesse unlocked the door as soon as he heard knocking on the other side, opening it to reveal three of the most tired looking men he head ever seen, even Marvin looked ashen. They stepped over one of those dead things. Jesse tentatively named them spider men, because the way they crawled on walls reminded him of Peter Parker's web slinging alter ego. There was no sign of the Sergeant. They all had their guns out, and scanned every corner of the expansive lobby and library. The zombies were one thing, slow and predictable, but these spider men were wicked fast, had a ranged attack and could come at all angles. The small group of survivors kept as quiet as possible, the things didn't seem to have eyes, so they must hunt with their other senses. No one was eager to attract their attention. Halfway through the library, Stacey veered away from the group, toward what was left of Suit Woman.

"What are you doing?" Mancini hissed.

Stacey looked back at them defiantly, walked over to the corpse, and tugged the orange duo tang out from her attaché case.

"We still need this." She whispered, and tucked the file under her arm. "Umbrella_ needs _to be punished."

It felt better to be in the Precinct's hallways, out from under the skylights, though the second story had many un-boarded windows, leaving them vulnerable to the crows, or those spider men. They sidestepped through the corridors with gun barrels pointed toward the glass. Jesse noticed that the cop's movements, Edward's especially, were markedly sluggish now. They were practically sleepwalking. Had they waited too long?

_- No sense torturing yourself, keep moving..-_

They dashed through the lobby's main floor. Behind the receptionist's desk Neil Carlson called out and gave pursuit. His glasses were gone and his nose sat crooked against one cheek. He was far enough away and they didn't bother wasting a bullet on him.

The group stopped for lunch, more liberated junk food, in the detective's office. It was windowless with heavy doors both in and out, therefore relatively safe. Marvin plugged in a single serving coffee maker found in Detective Allen's office and they took turns brewing up cups. It was black, bitter, and possibly the best thing Jesse had ever tasted. Elliott Edward took a greedy bite off a Snickers bar and washed it down with a gulp of coffee.

"This is one heck of a last supper." He was not smiling. His left forearm was bandaged and oozing blood.

"What's with the arm, Elliott?"

Officer Edward held his wounded arm up, Jesse could see inflamed red streaks crawling out, winding their way up toward his armpit.

_-He's infected! -_

Branagh answered the inevitable question. One of the spider men had attacked them last night in the West wing and slashed Edward with its tongue. He was infected, but the sickness seemed to be progressing much slower than with any of the other victims. Stacey hypothesized that the spider men carried a different, possibly weaker, strain of the T-virus. Edward would escort them as long as possible, and then they would have to shoot him. Elliott nodded slowly at this and lightly scratched at the gauze. The young mechanic now understood why the other two cops were so tired, they had spent the night with a man who could turn zombie any moment; he wouldn't have slept a wink either.

Jesse's watch beeped that it was noon and they got back to their feet. This was it, they were getting out. Lou Mancini slurped the dregs out of his Orange Crush and announced that he would not be accompanying them.

"Lou, that chopper isn't going to come, they're probably dead." Marvin stated. "It's our only option."

Lou "Maserati" shook his head angrily.

"You're goina die down in those tunnels, Bell might not come, but I'm _not _going in no hole in the ground."

"We _need _to stick together or we don't stand a chance!" Marvin shouted.

"Fine, you can stay here with me, too." Lou countered.

"We'll die here!"

"We'll die down _there._" Mancini turned back toward the lobby. "I'll be in that clock tower if you wanna join me."

So, Lou Mancini turned left, the others turned right. Leaving him to whatever fate awaited. It was a shame, Lou may have been a bonehead, but he was ex-SWAT team, and deadly accurate with the burp gun he wielded, and refused to relinquish.

Jesse had made it two thirds of the way down the basement stairs when he smelled something funny. Elliot, in the lead stopped at the bottom and gagged.

"Gah!" He choked. "What is that? My eyes...."

It was diesel smoke, sour smelling stuff that seemed to especially enjoy attacking the eyes and sinuses. The basement corridors were full of it, a gauzy blue haze hung noticeable around the overhead fluorescent tubes. They stumbled past the morgue doorway, a few undead on the other side, oblivious to the toxic air, throwing themselves against it and moaning incoherently. The exhaust was coming from the overhead ducting, which led back to the boiler room. With mouth and nose tucked into his AC/DC T-shirt, Jesse tried the door; it was locked. There was only one explanation, the generator. Only it hadn't been leaking earlier, before he left Martin in there. The electrician must have broken the exhaust pipe off the wall. Carbon Monoxide poisoning, it would have been a gentle death once the brain was deprived of enough oxygen to stop commanding the body to expel the noxious fumes.

Jesse was feeling light-headed by the time they had reached the garage's entry. Eager for fresh air, Edward yanked the door open and blundered through. He had made it five feet in when something hit him from the side, one minute he was there, the next only his peaked forage cap lay on the concrete, he didn't even have a chance to scream.

Branagh bolted forward, Jesse a step behind, the adrenaline countering the drunken feeling from the diesel exhaust. Marv had his pistol up and was firing with impressive speed. Jesse, significantly slower on the draw, lifted his Beretta up, and sighted on something that was about the size and shape of a large dog, which was tearing at Officer Edward's upper torso. It yelped and pitched sideways as one of Marvin's shots obliterated its spine.

Remarkably, Elliot, who was bloodied but not seriously wounded, pushed himself to a sitting position. He straightened his glasses, and alarm flashed on his bookish face. He grabbed his shotgun, aimed toward them then fired from the hip. Behind and to Jesse's right, another of these monsters, now clearly a large dog with patches of skin and fur missing, had its legs knocked out from under it. Branagh spun and finished it off with a headshot.

_-What the hell, zombie... dogs? How did they get in here? They must have smelled the blood from one of the airshafts. -_

"Get out of here!" Edward hollered, he had made it to his feet and staggered back toward them. Two more of the dog things charged from the direction of their tool boxes. They had that chemical reek as well, Umbrella experiments. Jesse fired a wild shot that chipped concrete; Branagh hit one with little effect, but Elliott's Remington sent them flying backward. Over the gunfire he could hear Stacey's shrill scream. He wheeled, and drew a sharp breath. Pat Davies, rather Pat Davies' infected corpse, had both pallid hands clamped onto his sister in-law's arm. Its mouth gaped open, blue lips curled away from teeth that were still white, and it shot its head toward her bicep.

"No!" He screamed. With his peripheral vision he saw Elliot get knocked down from behind.

Before the monster's teeth found purchase, Stacey curled her free hand into a fist and knocked Davies' head off target with a solid haymaker. Jesse could hear its teeth click together. It raised its head again, attempting another lunging bite, she planted her feet solidly and did her best to yank the arm free, but it was no good, Davies must have had a good fifty pounds on the girl. Jesse aimed, fired, and what was left of the zombie's already perforated skull exploded in a red mist as Jesse's one good shot ran its deadly course. Davies fell bonelessly to the floor. Branagh patted him on the shoulder.

"Back upstairs, there's too many!"

They ran through the diesel stink, up the stairs as those hellhounds nipped at their heels. One of them managed to get its muzzle in the door before Jesse slammed it; Marvin shot it at point blank range, sending it to zombie doggie heaven. Still they ran, finally stopping for breath in the waiting area between the lobby and detective's offices.

"Well, that didn't work." Branagh was bent at the waist with his hands on his thighs, sucking in air, "We'll need to try a manhole on Oak street. Is everyone okay?"

Jesse was unhurt; Branagh seemed fine, though Edward was gone. Stacey was behind him, drawing in tiny breaths that sounded wet and rheumy.

"Stacey are you..." Jesse spun to face her and realised that didn't need to finish his question. Stacey Kelso was not all right, and would never be all right ever again. She was staring at him with her big saucer eyes panicky and disbelieving. The only colour on her face were two red splotches on her cheeks and a lone pimple high on her forehead that stood out like stigmata. Her bottom lip trembled with each shallow breath. She had her left hand clutched to the right arm just above the elbow, where the zombie had grabbed it. The flesh was turning the bruised blue black of fat storm clouds; bright red streaks had already raced up to her shoulder. Her fingers were smeared with fresh blood.

_-No...No, nonono NO! - _Jesse shook his head in disbelief as an endless string of negatives cycled through his head

"Jesse..." she began.

"No..."

Marvin turned to face her, his eyes widened and he took a step back, swinging his pistol out.

"Davies got her." His voice was flat.

"No..."

"We need to stop it before she turns all the way."

"NO!" Jesse hollered.

"She's infected" Branagh implored. "We need get rid of her and keep moving, before any of those creatures find us."

"Like hell we will..." Jesse brought the Beretta up to level and pointed it at the cop. He had no doubt that he could pull the trigger.

Officer Branagh's dark eyes flitted between the muzzle of Jesse's gun and the trembling girl behind the mechanic. After a moment's deliberation, he holstered his pistol and held his palms out.

"Jesse, we need to do this." He spoke with the flat tone Jesse had instantly come to hate. "There's no saving her. If we leave her, she'll just die on her own, only then she'll turn into one more monster, looking to…"

"STOP TALKING ABOUT ME LIKE I'M NOT EVEN HERE!" Stacey screeched.

Both men swivelled toward her. She was shaking badly but her face had partially regained its familiar set of stubborn determination, though her red rimmed eyes betrayed the brave facade. "

"He's right Jesse. I don't want to turn into one of those things..." She buried her face into her hands and sobbed quietly. "We have to do it soon...while I can still think..."

_- Oh, holy shit, no...-_

"All right. You need to kneel down over here." Branagh instructed, pointing to the corner of the room.

Stacey nodded, and blundered forward like a foal deer. She had scratched a flap of skin loose near her wound, her upper arm blue-grey, dead. She slipped past Jesse, he reached his hand out to her and brushed her fingertips, they were cold.

"Stacey..." He called out. There was no feeling of unreality this time, she was real, she was going to die, and Jesse would be there to witness it.

She halted and gazed up at him, her young face simultaneously resolute and terror stricken. Wordlessly she pushed the orange duo tang out at him.

"Remember what we talked about." Her voice held steady.

Jesse nodded dumbly; he had to look away from her. He would lose his mind if he stared at her tragic face a second longer. "I won't forget."

"Okay." She strode on unsteady legs to the corner of the room and slowly dropped to her knees.

She had her back to them, her chest and shoulders heaving as she took small breaths of air, one hand tightly wrapped around her Saint Christopher medallion. Susan had one as well, given to both girls by their Grandma Shelling. He was the patron saint of travellers, among other things. One was supposed to pray to him to ensure a safe voyage.

Branagh took a step forward, squared off and sighted his gun with both hands.

"Are you ready Stacey?"

She nodded and sniffled, weeping gently.

"I'll count to three. I'm going to shoot as soon as I say three, all right?"

"_Okay_"

"Step back Jesse."

"One…"

_-Oh God!-_

"Two…"

Jesse closed his eyes, burning with tears.

The room was vacuously silent. Stacey drew a final breath between her teeth and held it.

"Three."

True to his word, Branagh fired as soon as the word left his lips. Jesse heard the sharp report, the heavy thump, and then a soft padding as his sister-in-law's sneakered feet drummed a tattoo on the tile.

Jesse would not look at her, would not allow that corpse to be his final memory of Stacey Kelso. He wished he could scream, inside an aimless rage begged to be released, he needed to destroy something, to vent his fury, his fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms. Stacey had stopped kicking.

_-Just give up, you're dead either way.-_

It wasn't a bad idea. A bullet in the brain would be a quick, allegedly painless way to go. Jesse had the berretta halfway up to his head before Chief Irons emerged from the far corner of the long L shaped hallway and shot Marv in the belly, restarting his survival instincts. Officer Branagh was knocked to the floor in the sitting position, practically on top of Stacey's body, his sky blue patrol shirt quickly darkening, his face dumbfounded. The Chief sighted on Jesse, lips pulled back, revealing tiny round teeth. Stacey had apparently been an excellent judge of character, Chief Irons was crazy.

_-Run! Run! - _

The young mechanic bolted for the open door to the detective's office. He was tall and fast, but Irons' bullet was faster still, by spades. There was no pain as the round tore through his bicep; Jesse felt a very thermal sensation as if he had reached into a fireplace. His left arm, instantly numb and useless, dropped the Beretta to the floor. As he passed through the entrance, the door's hardwood paneling exploded inward. This time Jesse most certainly _did_ feel pain, intense blazing agony in his midsection that strangled the breath out of him. Still he ran, flailing through the hallways, nearly asphyxiating with a bilious taste in his mouth. He had reached the basement stairs, cognisant that death awaited him in those corridors. Behind him he could hear a pitched gun battle as Branagh fought for his life, once again he was trapped.

Jesse quickly scanned the room, he had become light-headed and everything had begun to take on the look of overexposed film. He stumbled to the break room door; it was locked of course. He squeezed his eyes shut until the woozy feeling passed and slumped sideways against the paneled wall. His keys jabbed him in the leg.

_-Keys? My keys are in my toolbox.- _

He reached into his left pocket with his right hand, (The left arm was dead, hot, and soaking in blood) yanked out and gaped unbelievingly at the guard's keys he had claimed in the parking lot and completely forgotten about. Fighting back the bile in his esophagus, taking half breaths he began trying various keys in the lock. The gunfire had ceased, either Irons had been driven off, or Branagh was dead. The key ring slipped between his fingers and clinked to the floor; a paroxysm of pain gripped him as he bent over to retrieve it, the world swimming away from him. It passed and he fumbled another key into the slot. It turned ninety degrees and he heard the deadbolt retract, music to his ringing ears. Jesse wrenched the door open and lunged through, slamming it behind him and turning the lock.

The wound in his side screamed for attention. Jesse had assumed he had been shot, but it turned out to be a six-inch long mahogany splinter that had buried itself just below his ribcage. Steeling himself, he gripped the splinter with his good hand and awkwardly pulled it from the flesh, gritting his teeth. It came free with fibrous red tissue stuck in the grain; Jesse fell to his knees and blacked out.

He came to a few minutes later, wiped the grime off his face and propped himself up. His head cleared slightly and he stripped off his soiled coveralls and T-shirt. He felt a bit of relief as the terrible agony in his side abated to a dull throb, the penny sized hole bleeding steadily, but not at an alarming rate. He gripped his wounded arm and held it out for inspection. Irons' bullet had punched a neat hole through the soft skin of his upper arm. The holes oozed blood, but did not spurt, the arteries had been spared. He pinched the wound shut, and with effort could move his fingers and bend the arm at the elbow. The nerves were undamaged as well.

Jesse got to his feet, steadied himself and tottered into the back room where the rest beds and privy were located. He entered the small bathroom and yanked the first aid kit off the wall, spilling its contents into the rust stained sink. He smiled slightly; there was an aerosol can of hemostatic spray, an Umbrella product that had revolutionized battlefield first aid. He ground his molars together and liberally doused the gunshot, wincing against the searing pain. Nearly instantly the holes took on the hue of an old scab, the thermal feeling being exchanged for a steady ache. He sprayed the hole in his side, felt the coagulant work its way inside the wound, then slumped over the toilet and vomited.

The bathroom door swung open ten minutes later and Jesse emerged, bandaged, filthy, with four day's worth of stubble on his hollow cheeks. He could have passed for an inmate from Auschwitz prison. The fog in his eyes disappeared as he took in the horror in front of him. Lying on the rest bed's lower bunk was a dead cop, minus the head. A large shotgun with a wooden stock, the blued steel barrel covered in gore, was still held in his white hands. He slowly started forward, toward the corpse. He bent over it; the wall behind the bed was partially caved in and painted with bits of skull, brain, and copper coloured hair. The body still gave off the unmistakable aroma of tobacco and corn whiskey. On the nightstand an empty stainless steel flask rested atop a bloodstained sheet of paper on which the cop had inked his final musings. Jesse tried his best to keep his eyes away from the hellacious mess as he rifled though the dead man's pockets and gun belt. His rummaging yielded nearly forty rounds for the shotgun and a sturdy looking flashlight. He bent down, picked up the gun, and walked back into the main room, not sparing the cop a final glance.

Jesse did not feel good; he was miles, perhaps continents away from feeling good. However, now that he was clothed in a wool sweater and multi pocketed patrol jacket, at least he was warm. The stale turkey sandwich and overripe banana he had found in the ancient International Harvester refrigerator, and hastily devoured, had countered the nagging woozy feeling. It was the shotgun, now cleaned and shining, talismanic in its deadly beauty, that rekindled his confidence, and that was _almost _a good feeling.

He knew that he would die if he stayed in the precinct. Those creatures were everywhere and the generator must have been pretty close to empty. He most certainly did not relish the idea of fighting off those hell spawned creatures in the dark, he needed to get out. The sewers were still technically feasible, but Jesse had no idea where he was going, could not identify a water main to save his life, and possessed only a vague notion where the water treatment plant was situated.

He cast his gaze to the rest beds; the dead man's scuffed oxfords visible in the doorway. Dave had suggested a Sherman tank, it was a pity that there was no army base in Raccoon City, a tank would have made escape a very simple task. Jesse paused, and then grinned broadly.

_-A tank, no. A bulldozer, yes. -_

"Lombardi Demolition!" He blurted, unaware he had spoken out loud.

Jesse shot to his feet and began pacing around the Formica table, shaking his head and chuckling. Four blocks up Oak Street, Mike and Nick Lombardi ran a demolition business and stored their machinery in a compound behind their red brick office. Jesse had changed oil there for a summer between grades eleven and twelve. The Lombardi brothers did not believe in dynamiting a building. They prided themselves on destroying Raccoon City's derelict architecture with steel blades and wrecking balls, "_Nothing but Iron" _was their motto. Lombardi Iron could knock a building flat in half a day; Lombardi Iron could also punch a hole through Raccoon City's festering streets and deliver Jesse to safety.

"We'll take the sewers for a couple blocks, get into their shop, and then we'll _bulldoze _our way out!" Jesse announced to the walls, laughing excitedly.

He stuffed the shotgun ammo and the duo tang into his pockets, grabbed the Mossberg, and left the break room. He was making his escape alone, but was still smiling when he stepped out into the hallway. Somewhere deep inside Jesse realised this was a one in a million chance, he did not care.

_-It's out of my control.-_


	9. Into The Storm

**September 28 3:20 PM- Into the Storm**

The crows were at him the minute he set foot outside. His left arm, still very weak could barely keep the Mossberg steady. Every time the gun fired, his bony shoulder took the full brunt of its heavy recoil, the fingers on that hand tingling. Still, Jesse very much enjoyed the sight of the birds spiral diving to the ground, like little black airplanes. He sidestepped along the precinct's outer wall, pressed his butt against a wrought iron fence and blasted another pair of bezerker crows out of the air, feeling intense satisfaction as their dark bodies disintegrated in the high velocity hailstorm. The fence proved difficult to climb with one bad arm and weakened abdominal muscles. He tore a pocket open on the top stubs and lost a dozen shotgun rounds, there was no time to retrieve them. Several of the walking dead were headed for him; he grabbed the shotgun and sprinted across the concrete parking lot. There was a manhole near the open gate.

Jesse fired his seventh round at another bird. The Mossberg was empty, no time to reload. He slid to his knees in front of the manhole, dropped the gun and pulled out the long screwdriver he had robbed from the break room, jamming it in the crevice between the cover and the rim. With teeth grit and muscles screaming, he strained at the lid, but despite his best attempts, the cover would not budge, and the zombies neared every second.

He really should have realized escape would not be this easy.

Jesse's eyes darted between the cover, the monsters and the grey sky. He leaned all his weight onto the handle, straining with the effort. The tip snapped and his knuckles slammed into the pavement, sending a fresh shot of pain up to both shoulders.

"Shit!"

It was too late, the zombies were dangerously close, and Jesse could hear another crow screech nearby. He fumbled the gun into his skinned hands and scrambled away. He had no plan; he was operating in what his mom would have called 'brain stem mode'. Fight hadn't worked, so his only available option was flight. Jesse deked around a tall dead woman. Behind her, one of the Plymouth patrol cars, untouched and glossy, pointed its square nose toward the gate. Jesse had parked it there himself.

-_and left the keys inside-_

He pawed the door open, slid in, and cranked the engine over. The zombie he had evaded neared the car and beat her papery hands against the side window. The engine caught and roared to life with a puff of blue smoke. Jesse had the cruiser in gear and was barrelling forward a heartbeat later. He goosed the engine, broke the rear tires into a skid and spun out of the alleyway onto Oak Street. The street was plugged with dead traffic, but the big car was solid and heavy, essentially a battering ram on wheels. He bunted a hatchback out of his way, buckling the Fury's hood and fender. The undead pedestrian traffic toppled over like bowling pins, and once again, Jesse felt that queer feeling of exhilaration. He was not enjoying this by any means, but he felt like he was rocketing down a two lane mountain pass in his Mach 1. The Mustang's growling 351 Cleveland drowning out the radio, the steering wheel shimmying around his white knuckles, nine feet of blacktop and a flimsy guardrail separating him from life and death.

He swung the cruiser onto a sidewalk and sideswiped a pickup truck, wedging himself between the GMC and a used book shop. Both side mirrors were ripped loose, and the car ground to a halt. The zombies swarmed him, beating their flayed flesh on the car's windows. He jammed the car into reverse and tromped the gas. The rear tires screeched and smoked, but he worked it free before the creatures could smash the glass and pull him out. He backed out, pinned the accelerator and rammed the cruiser through. One week earlier Jesse had hammered the Gran Fury's body panels true and patched the rust with Bondo. He found it slightly wasteful to be destroying it in such a wanton fashion.

He weaved a wide S-shape through a block of sparse traffic and bumped over a dead body on the median strip. One block away from Lombardi Demolition, an overturned pumper truck blocked Oak Street entirely. In front of the pumper, a large mob of Raccoon City's transformed population, drawn to the commotion, staggered toward him. The engine pulsed steadily under the hood, tuned by Kevin Arsenault four days earlier. Jesse threw the shift selector into park, grabbed the Mossberg and hastily reloaded it. By the time the last shell was fit in, one of the undead was pressing her pale face against the glass; she looked strikingly similar to Stacey. A moment later, another had shattered the rear driver's side window.

He revved the engine and slammed the Plymouth into drive, the crumpled rear end fishtailed. He aimed the car for the front of the fire truck and braced for impact. The cruiser's front end buckled and belched white steam with a sickly sweet, heavy aroma. His teeth rattled together, and the shotgun bounced off the windshield and clattered to the floor. The pumper hadn't budged much, and so Jesse backed up for another try, bumping over a few corpses. The second go knocked it back further, but not quite far enough. The engine temperature idiot light was on, and Jesse could smell burning transmission fluid along with the coolant steam. His third attempt proved marginally successful, he was through and could see the Lombardi brothers' two story building through the cracked windshield, but the beaten Fury was nearly used up. He lurched the car back onto Oak Street and veered around a burnt RPD Crown Victoria. The blackened passenger smiled at him with a lipless mouth and ivory teeth.

There were far too many zombies for Jesse to chance making a run for it. He needed to get closer. Acidic smoke wafted into the driver's compartment, burning his nostrils and throat. The engine was bouncing off it's redline, but the Plymouth would only inch along. There was no doubt that he had burnt out the transmission, and the engine wasn't far behind. He was a half block away. The cruiser, immobile and smoking, had lived a short but eventful second life,

Jesse grabbed the Mossberg off the floor and exited out the passenger's side door. A zombie had crawled into the back through the open window but was trapped by the prisoner's shield. He shouldered the gun, blasted three zombies back, and ran forward. He tried his best to keep on top of vehicles. The undead didn't have exceptional climbing abilities and were often slowed down by simple obstructions. He hopped off a minivan's roof in front of Lombardi Demolition's office door. The agitation in the street had attracted the infected like wasps to sugar, Jesse fired his last round at a zombie and sprinted to the entrance. It was locked, Jesse had no time to even try to break down the door. He scrambled along the wall. A zombie snatched at him; he recoiled and swung the shotgun by the barrel, cracking it in the head. It reeled sideways, tripped on an overturned news box and fell to the ground.

He had ten seconds at most before he would be overwhelmed. His hands slid along smooth cold glass, an office window. He spun, smashed it and jumped through, taking a set of aluminium Venetian blinds with him. Two infected fumbled after him. Jesse pushed himself off the floor with his good arm, just in time to clear the floor for one of the undead.

Jesse groped for the Mag light as he backed away from the open window, farther into the dark office. His butt pressed against a desk; he laid the gun down and fished the flashlight out. Two more zombies had flopped through the window and blundered sightlessly toward him. Jesse flicked the light on, grabbed the big gun and weaved his way through an office that would have been the pinnacle of white-collar interior design in 1977. Jesse's light fell on a melamine-panelled door on the far wall, standing half open. The garage and machinery lay on the other side of it.

"Through there." He instructed himself.

He charged through, directly into the arms of a burly man who materialised out of the murk and grabbed him with icy hands. The flashlight slid from his rigid fingers and rolled away, casting a blob of light on a grease stained tin wall.

Jesse's heart leapt into his throat, the corpse had him by both shoulders and was using its considerable weight to drag him to the ground. He wrenched his upper body sideways and managed to partially wriggle out of its clammy grip. Jesse swung the shotgun one handed and sent the heavy wooden stock crashing into its pallid face. Its fingers slackened enough for him to yank his arm away, and with a quick pull, the monster was left with Jesse's torn Jacket. The struggle had reopened the bullet wound, and he felt warm blood trickling along the soft skin of his upper arm.

Jesse staggered along the wall, expecting another of those things to grab him from behind, knowing that would be the end of him. He loaded three cartridges into the gun; three more slipped through his shaking hands to the dark floor. A white face swam out of the dark. Jesse fired, stoving it in. It disappeared back into the blackness.

Jesse groped blindly through the shop. Several undead had stumbled into the garage, and, guided by something other than their cataracted eyes, drew nearer to him every moment as they called out vacuously. Jesse stopped as steel tracks ground against his leg just above the knee. He spun and felt his way along the treads, along cold steel pebbled and sandy with dirt. He ran his hands around to the front, along a chipped bucket, felt smooth Plexiglas protected behind steel bars. His night vision was just good enough to make out the vague shape of a dirty white tracked skid-steer, smaller than a compact car but strong and heavy. He clambered aboard the machine, feeling for the driver's compartment, swung the cockpit door shut and began blindly flicking at switches.

His fingers fell on the ignition key. He could scarcely believe his luck.

"Come on, Baby." he mumbled.

The skid-steer thrummed to life around him. Two spotlights bolted to the loader's roof blazed, tiny suns shrouded in pressed steel cowls. He squinted at the dimly lit instruments as they swept to their running positions, no warning lights, three-quarters tank of fuel, alternator charging. Jesse pushed the throttle lever to just below redline, grabbed the control sticks and slid his feet into the pedals; the tracks creaked forward, and the bucket rose above eye level. Joysticks forward, and the machine lurched ahead. He punched through the overhead door, knocking the lower panels out of their track, scooted across the gravel back lot, and flattened the chain link fence separating Lombardi's lot from Warren Street.

Jesse had found his Sherman tank.

The Bobcat made an ungodly racket as Jesse picked his way West down Emerald Avenue. The walking dead converged on the noise, swarming the loader when he stopped to hoist a wreck out of his way. He did his best to avoid meeting their blank stares as they pressed their faces against the Plexiglas.

He stopped a minute to dress his wound and reload the shotgun. By the time he was rolling, a moat of undead, five thick had surrounded him. He raised the bucket and bowled them over.

_-You'd better hope this thing doesn't stall or you'll be dead meat. -_

Jesse shook the thought away, and redirected his attention to his surroundings. He hoped the Cider district would be less congested, both with traffic and the infected swarm. So far his progress had been markedly slow.

He stopped to bunt around an ice-cream, truck with a cartoon clown painted on the side. Brown fluid leaked from the back window. Three zombies charged him and clung to the bars surrounding the cabin. He sideswiped a car, then a streetlight, grinding their lower torsos into the moving tracks, yanking them back and downward. He pretended not to hear bones crunching under the machine.

His journey through the Cider district took him down Alder Street, past the burnt out skeleton of Susan's parents' home. Owen's twelve-speed was still leaning against Mr. Kelso's Roadmaster, both were charred, tires burnt away, rims resting on blackened concrete. The paint on the Buick's hood had curled and cracked like autumn leaves.

_-You didn't pick this street on purpose, did you? -_

"No...Not at all."

Jesse didn't exactly have a plan, but he still had a half-tank of gas and thirteen shells for the gun. He would try to make it across Sherritt's Bridge, the only public bridge across the Arklay River into the mountains. If it was blocked (Jesse had no doubt that it would be) he would head south. There was an unused railway bridge and a natural gas pipeline nearby; with any luck one or the other would still be intact.

He had to swing the Bobcat a few streets over as he neared Sherritt's Bridge. There were cars scattered everywhere, flattening picket fences, parked on lawns, crunched against each other. In and amongst the clutter the infected passengers started toward him. He passed a station wagon. The two passengers, infected, lashed out at him, fighting against their seat belts. In the distance he could see the bridge's twisted steel girders sloping down the ravine to the waters below.

"Okay, plan B it is." Jesse shrugged and turned the loader toward the pipeline.

A mile south, Jesse veered off the road and into Memorial Park, toward the gas line. Unfortunately, the pipeline was in no better shape. The remaining stub, curled and blackened, looked like a bony finger pointing toward the opposite shore. At least whoever had dynamited it had the presence of mind to shut off the gas flow. Farther down the river he could make out the remains of the railway trestle. The tangled jumble of rusted iron beams jutted out of the water and stretched for the sky.

"Not going to make this easy for me, are you?"

He followed the narrow bicycle path to the pipeline's fenced-off enclosure and aimed the loader's lights at the pipe's base. A large group of corpses lay sprawled on the gravel near its concrete casing. It was too dark to identify definitively, but they seemed to have been shot to pieces with some sort of large-calibre gun. Had they been infected, or were they refugees attempting to cross the waters to safety? He couldn't tell and wasn't going in for a closer look. Jesse filed this information away and swung the Bobcat toward the street.

The water treatment plant was two miles down the road. If there weren't many zombies around he would try to find an entrance to the aqueduct. It was a long shot, but he was running out of options, and gas. Besides, who knew? With any luck there would be a large map tacked to the wall with an arrow marked "This Way."

He passed a cairn honouring the fifty-seven Raccoon City boys who gave up their lives in the First World War. Jesse caught a blur of motion to his right. He peered into the leafy darkness, saw nothing, shrugged and pressed forward on the controls.

_**BAM**__!_

Something struck the back of the skid steer, hard enough to rock the cab. Jesse heard an enraged howl over the engine and hydraulic motors.

_-What the hell? -_

He jammed on the levers and pivoted the machine. A dark shape melded into the shadows; he caught a glimpse of bronze coloured eyes that reflected the loader's work lights. His toes curled in his boots. He held his breath, pulled the track control levers all the way toward him, and backed away to the street.

Another flash of movement from the side, something heavy thudded on the back of the Bobcat. Jesse swivelled in the cab; the rear window was blocked by something man sized, with dark scaly flesh. The thing howled, and the corner of the cab caved in as if it was no heavier than a soup can.

"OH SHIT!" Jesse fumbled for his gun.

The Mossberg was far too bulky to be used in the loader's cockpit with any accuracy, but he doubled over and propped the barrel over his shoulder.

More motion to his left, the steel bars covering the side window were crunched together and ripped away by an arm as thick as his thigh.

"ARGH!" Jesse jammed the muzzle against the back window, wrapped his hands around the trigger and fired. The gun flew from his hands, broke his pointer finger and cracked against his shin. The explosion in the cabin was deafening; the world dimmed from his watering eyes.

_-Oh no you don't!- _

He pushed himself upright, leaning against the right control stick. The machine wheeled to the left on an invisible axis, flinging up large chunks of turf. He blinked tears from his eyes; the pinpricks of light disappeared from his vision.

The creature was now an inert dark lump on the sidewalk.

"Holy fuck..." Jesse couldn't hear his own voice.

More motion directly in front of him, coming out from behind a retaining wall. Another dark shape barrelling at him, proportioned like a gorilla, bipedal, thick chested with long powerful arms. It must have been another escaped Umbrella experiment. He couldn't tell if this one was screaming as well.

He hoisted the bucket, but the hydraulics were sloppy. He must have blown a hose. No time to worry about that now. The thing's metallic eyes, nearly luminescent, flashed as it charged him. Fifteen feet away, it hunkered down like a football player and launched itself at him. Its alligator's hide glistened in the spotlight's glare.

Jesse had been ready for it. He tipped the bucket out, backed up slightly and leaned his weight on the foot pedals. The loader's arms hammered the bucket down and he pinned the creature perfectly, the bucket driving it into the loamy earth.

Jesse kept his toes pressed against the pedals. He flipped the cockpit door open, grabbed the shotgun, quickly aimed, and fired into its monstrous face. It took three rounds before it stopped flailing and clawing at the steel on top of it.

He fought the Bobcat back onto Ridge Avenue; the undead mob had caught up to him and filled the street. They spilled out off houses, back yards, all converging on his obvious location. Jesse fed the last of the shells into the gun, his left hand awkward and swelling, dropped another cartridge to the floor where it promptly rolled behind the foot pedals.

Jesse wrinkled his nose; he could smell hot oil. He spun in his seat and peered through the shattered back window. The backside of the skid steer shimmered wetly. White smoke whiffed out of the engine nacelle. He had guessed right; two braided hydraulic hoses had been sheared off at their fittings, dousing the back of the loader and leaving a snail's trail of oil back into the park. Jesse recalled that hydrostatic motors turned the loader's tracks. A fluid leak that severe would quickly empty the reservoir, and no oil meant no motion. His machine was bleeding to death.

"Time to get out of here!"

The Bobcat didn't make it far before it slowed and the pump began to cavitate. Jesse scanned the streets. There were enough zombies nearby to form a baseball team. It wasn't anything close to safe out there, but he was out of time. He swung the cockpit door open and jumped to the ground.

He sidestepped to the left, onto a front lawn and weaved his way around a pair of infected, trying to save his ammo. The water treatment plant was two miles away; it might have well been on the moon. He jumped over a short fence, movement to his left; another infected; yet another stumbled out of a doorway in front of him. Another four reached for him on the other side of the fence. Jesse blasted the one in front of him. His arm could barely hold the gun steady, and the recoil flung the gun up and away, nearly out of his hands. He kept heading south at a pace no faster than a brisk walk, one step ahead of the dead.

A flash of light in front of him, another of those green monsters jumped off a veranda and charged. It crossed two front yards in the blink of an eye.

Jesse hoisted the shotgun, willing his arm to hold the gun straight. He didn't think he would have time or strength for a second shot. The monster was eight feet away, close enough to see a double row of cunning teeth in its open mouth. Jesse made a slight correction in his aim and squeezed the trigger. The blast stopped it dead, the massive chest caving in. It careened to the left and pitched sideways away from him. Jesse let out a breath of stale air.

Strong fingers grabbed Jesse's jacket from behind. He yelped and jumped ahead, but the zombie had a good grip and pulled him back. The ghoul wrapped an arm around his chest; Jesse could hear it moaning hungrily behind his left ear, smell its rotten breath.

He screamed, instinctively gripping the Mossberg just ahead of the trigger with both hands and driving it straight back over his right shoulder. He felt the cracking teeth resonate up the wooden stock. The arm around him loosened slightly, and Jesse spun so he could see his assailant, a tall slim woman in her late twenties with long dark hair. He hesitated, the zombie attacking him had once been Jenn Vincent. They had taken swimming lessons together. She was two years older than him and had been one of those universally likeable people who seemed too nice to be real. Jesse had spent his early teens helplessly infatuated with her, fantasizing what she would look like stripped of her aquamarine swimsuit. They still chatted when they bumped into one another. She was married to a doctor; they had a sixteen month-old daughter, and now her reanimated corpse was trying to kill him. He screamed again, railing against the indignity of the situation and delivered another blow.

She staggered away from him; her arms flailed and grabbed the shotgun's barrel, snatching it out of his hands.

"Shit!"

Something wrapped around his leg, a middle-aged man in a stained bathrobe had flopped over the picket fence and was bringing his mutilated face up to Jesse's calf.

"G-GET OFF ME!" Jesse kicked its hands away and leaps sideways.

He scanned his surroundings. The dead had closed in on him; Jenn Vincent's corpse had found its feet and was starting toward him again. He had made it less than a block, and now he was going to die.

_-GET OFF THE STREET STUPID! GET BACK INSIDE! -_

He spun on his heels, sprinting up a cobblestone walkway to a yellow clapboard Victorian's front door. Another infected grabbed at him, ending up with a strip off his jacket. If the door was locked, he was dead.

His luck still held out; the brass knob turned in his hand. He pushed the heavy door open, throwing the deadbolt as soon as he was through.

Something moaned behind him.

_-Give me a break! -_

An elderly man, who looked alive save for the grey skin and frosted eyes, ambled across a remarkably tidy living room. It tripped over a cherry coffee table and fell on it's face. Jesse started down a hallway; another dark shape shambled into view at the other end, out of what looked like the kitchen.

"Damn!"

There were two doors to his right. Door number one was a closet, no help at all; the first zombie was also in the hallway. He darted ahead; the second door revealed a darkened flight of stairs leading down.

_-Good enough.-_

He sped through, clicked the door shut behind him and threw the latch. It was old cast steel, built back when things were intended to last forever. If it had been white metal the creatures would have broken through in a few minutes, enough time for Jesse to say a few prayers.

The pair of infected began throwing themselves at the entrance, but the door was strong and as long as it was just the two of them, it would probably hold. If one of those green hulking things got in-.

Jesse shook the thought away. He sighed, lumbered down the rough stairs, and paused at the last step. There was no noise coming from the basement; he was safe.

The power was out, and the basement was darker than night. He made his way around guided by his watch's anemic blue backlight, running his other hand along the rough stone walls. He picked though a small toolbox filled with rusted screwdrivers, some mouldering cardboard boxes, the corners torn and spilling out ancient photo albums and musty clothing. There was nothing at all useful down here. Jesse stopped at the furnace, a gigantic old thing, greasy with coal dust, and rested his head on its insulated ductwork.

_-It looks like you're trapped buddy.-_

Upstairs, the two zombies scratched at the door. The stone echoed and amplified their cries, boring them into his head.

"Shut up already!" He kicked the furnace's metal sheeting.

He turned away, tripped on an unseen pipe and fell forward. His left arm offered no support; his forehead ground into the floor. After a moment, he sat up, drew his knees up to his chest, and buried his face in his mangled hands.

An hour after that he hadn't budged. His mind kept returning to the precinct, to Branagh, Martin, Shaun Kelly, Stacey. He had tried; there was no doubt of that. But what had it amounted to? Was he any better off than before?

Jesse shook his head, he had to keep his mind off that sort of thing, he knew that.

He reached into the jacket's large inner pocket, pulled out his flattened pack of cigarettes.

Why hadn't he taken his lighter back?

He was curled up and sobbing ten minutes later.


	10. Escape

**September 29 1998 12:17 AM- Escape**

Jesse had not been the type to cry himself to sleep; he supposed the past few days had been full of firsts. He woke to the sound of breaking glass, and slouching footsteps on the hardwood above him. The zombie duo had called in reinforcements. Jesse groaned and wiped at his face.

"I'm doomed."

_-Sure, you always did have a problem finishing what you started. Why stop now? - _It was Janet Franks' voice, curt, dispassionate.

"What choice do I have? I've got one arm, no weapon, and now there's three of them upstairs." He pleaded to the walls.

_-You have the choice to try. Don't tell me that you've come this far, just to give up? You have a brain; that is better than those things. -_

"So I have a brain..." Was it crazy to be arguing with his dead mother? Probably no crazier than anything happening outside. "It's not like I'm going to be able to talk them out of anything."

_-They are slow, and they are stupid. Throw the latch, beat their heads in one at a time as they stumble down the stairs, or just run past them. It's simple.-_

"Sure it is, and what should I do after I get out of here? I'll get eaten out in the streets."

_-You swim across the river.-_

"That's crazy, I'll drown."

-_You might drown, but there is an excellent chance that you won't. If you jump off that piece of pipe you can grab a hold of the railway bridge and climb over to the other bank. You're a very strong swimmer. -_

"I've got a gimp arm, the thing barely works."

_-You have one good arm and your legs still are fine. Would you rather wait for those things upstairs to finish you off?- _

"No."

_-Do you wish to see that girlfriend of yours again?- _

"She's my fiancée."

_-Answer the question Jesse.-_

"Of course I do."

_-Then get moving, the longer you wait, the more infected you will have to deal with.-_

Jesse shook his head and chuckled, but he got to his feet and brushed the dirt off his pants.

"This is nuts."

_-Find a weapon-_

He slipped the watch off his wrist and began pacing, casting the indigo light around the basement. He remembered hearing that some office workers had used the light from this style of watch to make it out of the blacked out World Trade Centre after that terrorist attack. As he screened the room he decided that if the story was true, it would have been a very slow journey.

His gaze fell on the pipe that had tripped him earlier: an old galvanized water line. "Hmmm. That might work."

The floorboards above him creaked steadily. There might have been a half dozen infected in the house now.

Jesse groped his way back to the small toolbox, rummaged though the ironmongery and pulled out a short pipe wrench. He traced the pipe back to the water meter, turned off the water and set to disconnecting a six foot length of the heavy steel line. He jammed the pipe wrench tight and jumped on the handle; the connection cracked and soaked one of his boots with cold water.

"Shit, that reminds me."

If he was planning on taking a swim, he had better make some provisions on what to do with his gear. Diving fifty feet into a raging river with one arm was near suicide. Why make it more difficult by adding a fleece lined jacket and steel toed boots?

Jesse rifled through the old boxes of clothing, found a pair of tennis shoes that pinched his toes and smelled like death but technically fit. He slipped off his jacket, emptied his pockets and pitched it aside. Bill Birkin's report, crumpled and torn in places, sat on top of his cigarettes and wallet. Jesse frowned; the water would ruin them. He tore open a garbage bag filed with old towels, plopped the papers in it, and tied it with a double knot.

"There." He tucked the file into his pants. "Good to go."

Upstairs, the basement door banged. He was running out of time.

Jesse gulped and returned to the pipe.

The other end spun loose, and it clanked to the floor. He picked it up, brandished it like a baseball bat and took a pre-emptive swing at the old furnace. The sheeting clanked loudly, momentarily drowning out the din upstairs. It left an impressive dent even with his diminished strength. He swung it overhead, knocked away a wooden chute fastened to the wall. He shone his watch light and assessed the damage, wondering how effective he would be against the infected, he was about to find out.

"Or am I?..."Jesse cast the light upward, up to a cast iron door set high on the wall.

_-Coal door.- _

He poked at it with his improvised bludgeon; it swung outward easily. He grinned. Why fight them at all?

Jesse hopped onto the fallen wooden chute and squeezed himself through the trap door.

The home's backyard was fenced off and free of any dead. It seemed that his run of good luck was holding. The zombies would have had an easy meal as Jesse wriggled out of the trap door onto the lawn. He reached back inside, grabbed the length of pipe and got moving.

Jesse peeked between two fence boards gazed out at the street. There must have been a hundred of them out there. The Bobcat was still running; its empty hydraulic pump was shrieking at the night sky, and apparently some sort of dinner bell for zombies.

"Just great!"

_-Keep moving; go through the back yards if you have to .-_

He shuddered and quietly stepped over to the fence and hoisted himself over. The adjacent yard was clear as well.

The makeshift bludgeon he wielded worked surprisingly well against lone attackers, the few zombies he had intercepted were dispatched with relative ease. Jesse crouched behind a pickup truck that sat leaking oil on a gravel driveway. Memorial Park, dark and sinister, waited across Ridge Avenue for him. He could see a platoon of zombies sleepwalking in the moonlight.

"Oh man, Frogger isn't as much fun when you're the frog." He pushed himself away from the truck, and dashed into the street.

The infected spun toward him and gave chase. Their cries seemed to be some sort of rallying call to others. It didn't much matter as long as he kept moving. He jabbed the pipe like a pike and knocked back the few infected who had shambled too close for comfort. By the time his feet hit the opposite sidewalk and he darted into the park nearly the entire mob had been on his tail.

The park was terrifying. The tall oak trees blocked out the moonlight. Every shadow and swinging branch was a ghoul reaching out for him. He blundered forward, nearly blind, fully aware that his opposing numbers weren't affected by that particular handicap and were closing in on him. The bicycle path wound deeper into the trees. He followed it south, and could make out the hiss of rushing water.

Faintly, Jesse could hear the high pitched squeal those alligator skinned monsters made. Moments later, another answered.

Pinpricks of perspiration prickled Jesse's forehead and he hurried along. A zombie lurched out of the shadows with arms outstretched; it moaned thickly and grabbed at him. Jesse cursed under his breath and drove the pipe crosswise into its temple. It dropped to one knee, and howled in protest. Those whistling cries drew closer. Bob the zombie was yelling that supper was on.

"Shut up…" Jesse punctuated with another overhead swing that knocked its face into the sod. "….you… stupid…thing!"

_-Why are you stopping? Go!-_

He tore down the path, deciding that expedience trumped prudence for the moment. He rounded a corner, saw the stub of a pipeline jutting out from its fenced enclosure, and doubled his pace.

Someone had been kind enough to cut the padlock on the chain link gate. Jesse swiftly picked his way through the bodies that littered the compound; they had been torn to pieces, shot and then eaten by scavenging undead. One man, dressed in faded military fatigues, still clutched a snub nosed .38 His upper torso had holes punched in it the size of grapefruit. Jesse stepped over an open briefcase stuffed with what looked like Treasury Bills and stock portfolios. He flushed with anger; these people had been survivors just like him. Had the Army done this?

He climbed onto the concrete casing, carefully walked up the pipe and halted at the sheared end, fixated on the dark void that rushed below him. His eyes crawled along the polluted water to the opposite side, he watched the grey foam churn up on the rocky shore.

_-It will be just like the high board at Centennial pool.-_

The fingers on his right hand relaxed, and he let the pipe drop, watched it disappear into the torrent. He squinted at the railway trestle. If he couldn't grab it he would be pinned under the spillway a mile down the river.

The pipe shook under his feet, Jesse spun around; his jaw clicked shut. One of those ape things was almost within an arms length of him; it had been deceptively silent, one arm cocked back, ready to slash Jesse in two.

It was two feet away when Jesse jumped off the torn pipeline. The monster followed after him, calling out in fury. Jesse felt his stomach flutter into his ribcage, and his ball cap flew off his head. He had just enough time to point his toes and tuck his arms before he hit the water.

Icy cold water slammed up his nose and into his lungs. The current pulled his legs forward and above his body. The cold worked at his wounds, the sudden shock paralysing him. His head broke the surface for a spit second. He gasped for air, got another mouthful of brackish water and was pulled under again. He commanded his appendages into action and thrashed against the current. His head broke again, he promptly expelled a lungful of stale air, the shoreline whizzed past him, and then he was under.

His swimming skills weren't amounting to very much, and the best he could do was pop his head out long enough to prevent drowning. He had no control, was at mercy to the whims of the river, and was losing strength. The tempestuous flow tugged him further down; and bright white spots of light had filled his field of vision, he had been under for nearly half a minute. Sleepily, Jesse attempted to claw his way up, he expelled a breath of dead air, sucked in water. His larynx clamped shut and he gagged.

Jesse flailed weakly, somewhere above him there was air to breathe.

Something solid cracked against his side and pitched him out of the water. Jesse gasped for air and groped feebly, he was submerged again, forced under a log, or beam.

_-The bridge!- _

With what strength he had left, Jesse struggled to the surface. He slammed against another girder, wrapped an arm around it and clung like a tick. He shimmied up the beam. His head poked out of the water. He instantly choked in a lungful of fresh air, and retched out a stomach full of river water with the exhale. Both legs fastened tightly against the rail, his head and shoulders bunted against the flow. He remained in that position until he could breathe normally and the pricks of light disappeared from view.

_-I told you it was possible.-_

"Thanks Mom." He wheezed, and began to inch along the collapsed girder to the Arklay River's west bank.

Jesse, cold and sopping wet, stood on the abandoned rail line and gazed east at Raccoon City. His feet, clad in stolen tennis shoes, rested on land that was officially outside of city limits. He coughed weakly and spat into the water. He trailed his gaze along the fallen bridge and counted seven lifeless corpses strewn about the flotsam and jetsam in the river. Near the east shore, a body skewered on a chunk of rebar twitched and beat at the waves with one arm. How many infected had made it into the water? How many lurked in the hills that stretched out behind him? The first attacks had happened in this very forest, how safe was he?

"I'm safer." He croaked and doubled over with another bout of wet coughs.

Jesse wiped at his mouth with a shirtsleeve, his lifeguard training had provided him with a keen understanding into the physiology of drowning. Water in the lungs did all manner of nastiness, pulmonary edema, cardiovascular trauma, and many other ghastly things Jesse couldn't remember or pronounce. He pressed his good hand to his chest, felt his heart hammer away at his aching lungs. The best he could manage was a half breath before triggering another coughing fit. He needed to get to a hospital; he had no intentions of surviving an undead horde just to keel over with burst air bags.

Jesse turned his back on the doomed city and began following the railway tracks. He was unsure what the government was planning on doing with the town, but figured it would involve a lot of fire and explosions and men in white space suits. The ranch house he had grown up in would be gone. He would never sleep in his modest bedroom, or watch Cannonball Run on his immodest television; ever again. His Mustang would sit under its canvas cover in Martin's garage. He would never again hear the crackle of the glasspack mufflers as he poured on the gas. Raccoon City, his only home, was a total loss. In one weekend, his life had been inexorably changed.

_-Changed, but not over. - _It was no longer his mother's voice._ -You can live with that.-_

"Yeah." He coughed again, spat out more foul tasting water.

Jesse gripped his wounded arm and held it to his chest. The entire left side of his body ached steadily. His lungs whistled with each breath, and he had to double over hacking and gasping nearly every minute. He was cold, beyond pain, but alive.

The rail line stretched out ahead of him and disappeared into the darkness. It was a spur off the BNSF, built by the Linn Gordon Mining Company to transport ore from the mines to Raccoon City for smelting, as well as to ferry the Western states' plutocracy to the hot springs and mineral pools the company owned in Latham. Once the mines were closed down and Jordan Road widened and paved, the tracks had fallen into disuse.

Jim Hildebrand's second car was an old Plymouth Satellite station wagon. Somehow Jim discovered that the Satellite's wheelbase matched the rails perfectly. He would let half the air out of his tires and drive onto the tracks, using the rails as his private motorway. Jim was tall, could grow a full beard, and knew that Stanley Benson, owner of the Tree Top Hotel in Latham, never bothered with such trivialities as legal identification. Jim and Jesse could rocket to the Tree Top and back to Raccoon City with a back seat full of Pabst Blue Ribbon in just over an hour. They called it J and J's Midnight Highway. Twice they careened off the rails and crashed into the trees alongside the tracks, small wonder they were never killed.

Jesse smiled grimly; a cold wind out of the north drove the temperature down low enough for his breath to stream out in tiny puffs. He was going to make one more run down the Midnight Highway.

He set off again, pausing only to catch his breath and rub life back into his arm. A few miles down came across a tree that had fallen across the rails. He stopped near it, examined the exploded looking trunk, the deep pock marks cut into the bark. He narrowed his eyes and noticed the clear-cut path twenty yards long and perpendicular to the tracks. Smaller pine trees had been mulched to pulp. Curious he left the tracks to investigate; his foot squished into something cold and quaggy. Jesse gazed down at the unidentifiable object that had once been alive and tore his eyes away, hoping that it was possible to un-see something. Calmly, he extricated his foot from the mess and quickly resumed his trek.

An hour later Jesse was shivering steadily. His wounded arm was rigid and good for nothing except causing the occasional violent spasm of pain. His good hand crawled up to the bullet wound in his bicep. He could feel it radiating sickly heat through the damp wool. Every nick and scratch on his body itched and pulsed. Something in the water must have caused an irritation. The Arklay River was fairly polluted, although Umbrella had donated millions of dollars in effort to clean it up.

_-Now that was a joke, Umbrella cleaning up Raccoon City.-_

It was also probable that one of the many plants upstream had spilled something toxic into the water preceding the attack. Essentially, it was impossible to know what chemicals the Arklay was laced with. Jesse stopped dead.

_-Chemical? How about virus?-_

His jaw dropped. Was he infected? He had seen at least one zombie taking a dip in the pool; he had no idea if the T-Virus survived in water. He knew that the AIDS Virus didn't, did that apply to viruses as a whole?

"No…" He shook his head. "That's not fair."

_-What exactly, has stuck you as fair lately Jesse? - _It was Stacey's voice.

Jesse was so deeply introspective that he had almost heard the helicopter too late. Finally he heard the _whucka whucka_ of approaching rotors.

"Oh fuck!"

He scrambled like a frightened rabbit, in search of anything that could be used as cover. He jumped off the rails, saw a rocky outcropping partially covered with deadfall, and charged for it. The chopper was getting louder; he dove under it and prayed that the pilots weren't using thermal imaging.

"Please, please, please, please!" He wheezed.

_-If you're infected they will be doing you a favour by killing you. - _Stacey again, death had turned her into a bit of a bitch.

Jesse tucked his head farther under the ridge. The helicopter soared past and continued toward the river. He refused to budge until he could no longer hear it. Ten minutes later the drone was distant but still audible. He crawled out of his hiding spot and scanned the clear sky for it. It was nowhere to be seen, but suddenly he heard a drawn out rumble, like an amplified version of Lou Maserati's MP-5.

East of him, the sky lit up momentarily.

**Braaaaaaap!**

Like most men, Jesse has a healthy interest in all things military. He knew that the US Army had been equipping its combat helicopters with mini guns -multi-barreled 7.62 mm machine guns that fired three thousand rounds per minute- since the Vietnam War. Cargo aircraft would also be fitted with several of them and used as airborne artillery. The gunships could strip a tree bare and obliterate every living thing in an acre of land. What would it feel like to be hit with that many bullets? How would the central nervous system be able to react to that much trauma at once?

Despite his soupy lungs, Jesse longed for a cigarette; he pulled out and unwrapped the plastic parcel. It hadn't travelled well; the report's pages were soft and smudged, but still legible. The cigarettes were a lost cause though, mushy and disintegrating; he stared down at them for a minute.

"Screw it, I quit."

He mashed the pack into a ball and pitched it into the woods. Tyler Franks had been living life on his own terms since his rebirth in Southeast Asia thirty years ago, and Jesse planned on following his lead. If he was intended to be spared; he wasn't going to shorten his life with carcinogens a moment longer.

The chopper droned farther away and Jesse returned to the tracks. Twice he heard the ship fire its guns. He would need to be careful.

The sky began to lighten to the east shortly after Jesse forded the small creek that roughly marked the halfway point between Raccoon City and Latham. The county had demolished the short bridge that crossed it in the years since he and Jim illicitly travelled the rails, preventing a new generation of irresponsible youths from riding J and J's Midnight Highway. He was winded and ready to black out by the time he scrabbled up the muddy slope, and he needed to rest.

Jesse sat on the tracks and turned back toward where he had come.

_-Halfway there, a few more hours and I'll be safe.- _

His head throbbed. His teeth chattered continuously, and his skin felt as if it had come alive and was trying to escape. He forced his hand into his pocket, commanding it not to scratch at the hole in his side. He kept insisting to himself that he was _not_ infected. Even the slow burns would have turned by now.

_-What about Elliot? He lasted all night.-_

"I'm not infected." His throat felt like it was full of fibreglass; he had tried to drink some water out of the creek and didn't have the strength to swallow it. Maybe he would die of a regular bacterial infection instead, or maybe something old school like gangrene.

He forced his mind off to another subject, to Susan.

Where was she? He wondered. She must have gotten word what was happening by now, especially with the army using Latham as a staging ground. Was she in her cluttered basement suite, watching CNN as some self assured newscaster reported about the nightmare that had unfolded in her hometown? Would there be footage of the infected shambling down Oak Street, interviews with terse military men with short grey hair and gold stars on their collars? How long would Susan stay in Latham before moving on? She wouldn't want to be alone and had friends scattered all across the country, other ski punks who spent their winters working at resorts for free lift tickets. She had family in Boston, New Jersey; she could be anywhere.

Jesse pulled the wallet out of his back pocket and fished the trimmed colour photo he had taken of her on their trip to Mount Hood. Susan could not resist ruining a photograph, but he managed to snap it before she could poke her tongue out at him. Jesse gazed at the girl in the photo. It wasn't a great shot of her. Her face was windburnt, and she was squinting into the sun, accentuating the premature wrinkles around her eyes, but _god_ she was pretty. Jesse smiled sickly; even the muscles in his face hurt from the chattering. The slightest breeze felt like a thousand pinpricks against his skin.

That night they rented a room at a twenty-five dollar a night hotel that had communal wash rooms and threadbare orange shag carpet in the bedrooms. They stayed up late, drinking rum mixed with the room's complimentary coffee, smoking cigarettes in bed and watching "The Blob" on Telemundo. It was dubbed into Spanish and renamed "El Borron" Susan laughed so hard at the ludicrous voice-overs that she needed to grab his shoulders and dig her fingernails in to keep from tipping off the bed. She was so unlike any woman he had known before, wild but kind hearted, independent but warm.

That night he knew he would marry her; Sigmund Freud could kiss his ass.

_-She'll still be there.-_

The miles stretched on. It was mid-morning. A thin skiff of clouds had drifted in, and it was drizzling sporadically. Jesse loped along, shivering violently, feverish to the point where his spine had fused solid. A helicopter could have passed ten feet over him and he wouldn't have looked up. It was his good fortune that he wandered out of their patrol area. He goaded himself along, he needed to keep going, he was so close.

Jesse stopped for a moment and began humming the chorus to the Travelling Wilbury's song. "End of the line". It was one of Tyler Franks' favourites and a staple of their fishing trips together. Jesse could hear nothing but the ringing in his ears, and after humming a few bars he bent sideways, spat up a mouthful of blood, and then continued down the rails.

The lyrics, which he had committed to memory long ago, endlessly looped through his mind.

_-We're going to the end of the line.-_

* * *

At around quarter to one in the afternoon, a bent figure, filthy and rakishly skinny, picked his way out of a copse of trees onto Woodrow Wilson Elementary's soccer pitch. He was wearing a single tennis shoe, and his navy blue wool sweater had been torn to shreds and hung in ribbons over one shoulder. He scratched relentlessly at a monstrously swollen left arm, the flesh of the inner bicep glowing with infection. An orange duo-tang that seemed to be held together by some act of divine intervention was folded in half and tucked into one back pocket.

The shambling wreck ambled past a parked school bus, and although he seemed to be mumbling senselessly, if a person were to stand close enough, it _was_ possible to make out what he was saying, _or singing_.

"_Well it's…all…right…Even when push comes to shove..."_

He tripped over a concrete bicycle stand and leaned against the bus for support.

"_Well it's…all…right…If you got someone to love…"_

At the far end of School Street, a Humvee rounded the corner and chugged along toward Woodrow Wilson Elementary.

"_Well it's…all…right…everything will work out fine…"_

The thin man stumbled onto the pavement, eyes locked ahead, staggering drunkenly. A block away, the camouflaged vehicle's brakes squeaked and it came to a stop.

"_Well it's…all…right..."_

A pair of clean shaven National Guardsmen, wearing Kevlar helmets and carrying M-16 assault rifles, exited their vehicle and started toward the wretch. The point man had spent the past six hours at the Jordan Road blockade; glassing the quarantine zone with binoculars and reminding himself that this _wasn't_ make believe, that the apparently the monsters under his bed _did_ exist.

He spat out a wad of spearmint bubble gum and clicked the safety off his rifle.

"_We're going to the end of the line."_


	11. Epilogue

_"...Maybe somewhere down the road a ways_

_(at the end of the line)_

_You'll think of me and wonder where I am these days..."_

The Travelling Wilburys "End of the line"

**December 15 1998 9:20 PM- Susan**

Susan's eyes trailed off the papers in her lap. She watched impassively as the steady drizzle beaded off her balcony window, blurring the cityscape on the other side of the glass. Past the lights of the harbour Puget Sound stretched to the horizon, looking like black granite.

She pulled off her cat's eye glasses, a vintage pair from the sixties she had found at a thrift store, and rubbed her eyes. They ached dully, unaccustomed to so much reading. She pushed the glasses back in place, and returned her gaze to the window. The lights from a Christmas tree in an apartment across the street twinkled and pulsed. Obscured by the rain, it was a multicoloured cone of light.

_-Christmas.- _

It would have been no surprise to her to find out that depression rates were highest during the holidays. From her early teens onward she had hated Christmas, the forced cheer, the awful music, the subtle judgement by her extended family,

_"And what are you doing these days Susan? Still working at that hotel?" _

Twice she had intentionally gone on vacation in order to avoid the debacle that was a Kelso Christmas. Though at least then avoiding her family had been on her own terms.

_-I never thought I'd miss them-_

She had spent her adolescence and adulthood identifying herself by what she wasn't. She wasn't her Mother. She wasn't her younger, obedient sister, or her good natured brother. She wasn't her workaholic father. These people were gone. Four tombstones and a few photo albums was all that remained. Who was she?

She shook her head slowly and returned to the forms she was filling out. Soon she would be Susan Kelso: a University of Washington student on the four year journey to her Bachelor of Education.

Outside, the rain continued. It was not an outright downpour, just enough to make things cold and miserable, typical weather for December in Washington. It would be snowing in Raccoon City. The lifts would be running in Latham.

A half hour later, she brushed the paperwork aside, stood and stretched, eyeing her new living room. The furniture was all new, delivered from Ikea the week before, semi-disposable stuff she had bought on sale. She padded down the hall toward her bedroom, noting that she didn't like the place much. It seemed more like the hotel rooms she used to clean than an actual domicile, comfortable and stylish, but lacking any character of the person who resided there. She had left most of her personal things in Latham when she moved. Her boards, her music, none of it seemed to apply to her any more. The punk routine was only really relevant if the person had something to rebel against. Everything she had been defying had disappeared in a mushroom cloud the last week of September.

In a way, the slate had been wiped clean.

She stopped at her dresser, staring with blend disinterest into the mosaic mirror she had bough for nineteen dollars and ninety nine cents. She wasn't physically any different than four months ago. She was still short, still had black hair and thin lips, her eyes still squinted whenever she took off her glasses.

She was still Susan Kelso.

The alarm clock on her nightstand, bargain priced at seven ninety nine, showed that it was ten to ten. She sighed, walked over to the large, mostly empty closet, and began undressing. She had work in the morning. As the sole beneficiary to her family's life insurance policies she didn't need the money, but the job kept her occupied. It gave her a purpose.

She slipped out of her bra and panties, into a ratty pair of Joe Boxers and a Misfits T-shirt, and then dosed a pair of pills from the bottle that sat on her nightstand. Swallowing them dry, she shuffled barefoot into the kitchen, shutting off lights as she went.

_-Good night Seattle-_

A quick gulp of water washed the bitter tang from her mouth. She wiped the glass and placed it back in the cupboard. Five of the glasses had yet to be used.

She hesitated at the fridge, transfixed by the tall skinny man who smiled at her from the five by seven taped to the door. Unconsciously, one hand crept to the simple gold ring that was strung through a chain around her neck.

And a hot pang ripped through her with enough severity that for a moment she actually thought her heart had stopped. Her breath hitched in her throat.

It was the first picture she had taken of him. He was clean shaven, lips parted in a broad smile, a cigarette tucked behind his ear. His dark hair was combed back, and he was leaning on that hot rod Mustang of his.

She remembered looking at him as she snapped the photo, thinking to herself '_Oh my God, I think I'm dating Sodapop Curtis!' _Before she could burst out in laughter, his grin widened, and he asked her if she wanted to learn how to drive a stick shift. He tossed her his keys before she could answer.

She had nearly burnt the clutch out of his car that day, and by the time she was able to start and stop without stalling, she swore that his back tires were skinned bald. All the while he kept laughing, looking like he was having the time of his life despite the fact that she was torturing his car.

"Don't worry, tires are cheap. Try giving it a bit less gas."

God she missed him, his quiet confidence, the way he looked at her.

_-Don't torture yourself, take the picture down-_

"No."

There was a tombstone for him as well, next to Owen's. Like the rest of her family he was missing, presumed dead.

**BRRANG!**

She startled badly at the sound of the telephone. The ring slipped from her fingers and fell to its spot between her breasts.

_-Whoah, easy- _

Susan's pulse relented, and she walked over to the phone. The call display showed an unlisted number. Normally that only meant one thing.

_-Damn salesmen. Can't they leave the bereaved alone?-_

The phone rang a third time. She eyed the receiver searchingly.

_-It's too late for a telemarketer though, they normally call around supper time.-_

She picked up the phone before the answering machine cut in.

"Hello?" She tried to give her voice the appropriate balance of politeness and annoyance.

"Hello" An uncomfortably long pause. "Susan?"

Susan felt a shiver fire down from the nape of her neck to the bottom of her heels. She spun sideways and gaped at the grinning man on her refrigerator door. Was she going insane?

"S-speaking." She was trembling badly. It took effort to keep the phone to her ear. That voice, raspy, but unmistakable.

"Hey, Suzie-Q, you can't believe how good it is to hear your voice."

Susan Kelso bit her lip and closed her eyes against the tears. Once more, her fingers slipped around the gold engagement ring, along with its neighbour: a small silver medallion bearing the likeness of Saint Christopher.

_-Oh yes I do-_

**Author's Note: First of all, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read my fic. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.**

**As you probably noticed, I did take a few liberties with Raccoon City and the Resident Evil timeline. I hope you RE purists aren't too irritated.**

**I had originally ended this story with chapter ten, however I was never fully satisfied with the ending. So after much deliberation I decided to add an epilogue, I always feel a little ripped off when a story has an ambiguous ending, and figured that there was a good chance that you feel the same way.**

**So, now is your chance to tell me what you think, should I have left well enough alone. Or is this better. I'd sure like to hear what you have to say.**

**BTW, The Traveling Wilburys are awesome, just so you know.**

**Cheers**

**-C **


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